DAMASCUS, 23 August. - (ANA) - An Israeli drone strike on a vehicle wounded one person on Saturday in the southwestern Syrian village of Beit Jin, according to the Syrian state news agency SANA. Syria’s foreign ministry said several civilians were injured and called the strike a flagrant violation of the country’s sovereignty.

 

The Israeli military said it targeted a “terrorist who advanced terror attacks in final stages of preparation,” without elaborating. It wasn’t immediately clear if it was the same strike.

 

Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes around Syria after the ouster of former President Bashar Assad in late 2024, mainly destroying army assets to keep them out of the hands of his successors.

 

 

 

 

In an interview on Friday with Mario Nawfal, a Lebanese-Australian entrepreneur, U.S. Ambassador Tom Barrack said Israel “still” occupies the Golan Heights in violation of U.N. resolutions.

 

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Saturday in a statement called Barrack’s remarks “full of inaccuracies and positions that contradict Trump’s own position.”

 

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war and annexed it in 1981. The U.N. considers the territory occupied Syrian land. But in March 2019, Trump signed a proclamation recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, reversing decades of U.S. policy.

 

This month, Colombia became the second country to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the territory.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/23 August 2026 - - -