Israel has shown little respect for international borders since becoming the unrivalled military hegemon of the Middle East.  Today that meant an Israeli airstrike on a government building in Damascus.

Israel says its attack on a Syrian defence ministry facility was intended as a warning to the new government: stay out of the part of southern Syria we have occupied or else.

Israel has moved into parts of the south of the country, built military bases and declared a line of control.

On Monday, Syrian tanks heading south to try and restore order following an outbreak of factional fighting were attacked by Israeli warplanes.

“The presence of such vehicles in southern Syria could pose a threat to Israel,” stated the Israel Defence Forces.

In reality, Syria’s ageing tanks pose minimal threat to Israel’s state-of-the art military.

The Syrian armour was attacked as it entered the area around Sweida in the Druze heartland of southern Syria following factional fighting there.

The flare-up reportedly began with clashes between Bedouin and Druze groups that ended in scores killed.

The background to the escalation is complicated.

At least three Druze militia groups are divided in their loyalties to different religious leaders and differ over how they should respond to calls to assimilate into the new post-revolutionary Syria.

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Israel is becoming more and more involved in Syria’s internecine war and says it will remain there indefinitely “to protect our communities and thwart any threat”.

Its critics say Israel is operating a policy of divide and rule in Syria, weakening the fledgling government and creating a buffer zone to protect the border with the Golan Heights – originally Syrian territory that it has occupied and annexed for almost half a century.

Since the fall of the Assad regime, Israel has used airstrikes to destroy of much of Syria’s military capability weakening its ability to impose control on outlying regions. This makes it more not less likely Israel will have a volatile unstable state on its northern border.

America and European powers have chosen to normalise relations with the new government in Damascus and lift sanctions.

In contrast Israel has occupied its territory, bombed its military and today hit one of its government buildings in the capital with an airstrike.

Since its crushing military campaigns against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, Israel has emerged as the unchallenged military power of the region.

There is however a limit to what blunt force can achieve alone. It requires diplomacy to achieve lasting gains and Israel’s repeated assaults on multiple neighbours combined with its relentless campaign in Gaza are winning it few friends in the region.

Israeli airstrikes have targeted the Syrian military headquarters in Damascus amid renewed clashes in the country.

The gate of the Ministry of Defence in the Syrian capital was targeted by two warning missiles from an Israeli reconnaissance aircraft.

State-owned Elekhbariya TV said the Israeli strike had wounded two civilians, the Reuters news agency reported.

It came as Israeli airstrikes targeted security and army vehicles in the southern city of Sweida, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups – marking the third consecutive day Israel has struck Syrian forces.

The Israeli military confirmed it had “struck the entrance gate” in Damascus – and that it would be monitoring “actions being taken against Druze civilians in southern Syria”.

Why Israel is getting involved in Syria’s internal fighting

Dominic Waghorn

International affairs editor

@DominicWaghorn

Israel has shown little respect for international borders since becoming the unrivalled military hegemon of the Middle East. Today that meant an Israeli airstrike on a government building in Damascus.

Israel says its attack on a Syrian defence ministry facility was intended as a warning to the new government: stay out of the part of southern Syria we have occupied or else.

Israel has moved into parts of the south of the country, built military bases and declared a line of control.

On Monday, Syrian tanks heading south to try and restore order following an outbreak of factional fighting were attacked by Israeli warplanes.

“The presence of such vehicles in southern Syria could pose a threat to Israel,” stated the Israel Defence Forces.

In reality, Syria’s ageing tanks pose minimal threat to Israel’s state-of-the art military.

Read the full analysis

Local media said Sweida and nearby villages were coming under heavy artillery and mortar fire on Wednesday, according to Reuters.

The clashes marked the collapse of a ceasefire between Syrian government forces and Druze armed groups, with Israel also warning it would increase its involvement.

Israel said it was acting to protect the Druze groups through its attacks on convoys of Syrian forces.

Syria blamed militias in Sweida for violating a ceasefire agreement which had only been reached on Tuesday.

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A statement from its defence ministry said: “Military forces continue to respond to the source of fire inside the city of Sweida, while adhering to rules of engagement to protect residents, prevent harm, and ensure the safe return of those who left the city back to their homes.”

Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz said the military will continue to strike Syrian forces until they withdraw and should “leave Druze alone”, according to local reports.

Twenty one people have been killed following a crush at an aid distribution site in Gaza, according to local health officials.

Footage shows young men being rushed to the nearby Nasser hospital in the immediate aftermath of the incident on Wednesday morning.

At least 17 of the victims died from suffocation, according to one of the hospital’s doctors, Dr Muhammad Saqr.

The crush is the latest in a string of incidents that have plagued the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israel- and US-backed organisation tasked with delivering aid in Gaza.

It comes one day after GHF implemented a new system at the site whereby red and green flags are used to tell Palestinians whether the aid centre is open, rather than posts on social media.

Analysis by Sky News shows that GHF stopped announcing the timings of aid site openings more than a week before the new system was put in place.

Of the 13 aid distributions since 6 July, only one was announced by GHF.

The flag system was implemented following widespread criticism of GHF’s protocols after numerous reports of fatal mass shootings near its aid sites.

The footage below was taken on Tuesday at the site where the crush occurred, known as Secure Distribution Site 3 (SDS3). It shows a red flag above the site following an aid distribution.

“The new system doesn’t tell you when to go,” says Ahmed Dhair, who was present at the crush this morning. “To see the flag, you have to go very, very close to the centre.”

Another person says that everyone goes early to the aid centre. “If they follow the flags, they will not have time to reach the centre.”

Sky News spoke to five Palestinians who were present at the stampede. Their accounts suggest that the crush was the result of systemic failures of communication and crowd control by GHF.

Decision to approach

Father-of-four Ahmed, 36, told Sky News that “thousands” of people had been waiting nearby for the site, SDS3, to open.

Three eyewitnesses, including Ahmed, said that the crowd began to approach the aid site at around 6am after seeing the withdrawal of IDF vehicles.

Ahmed says this has become standard practice since GHF stopped announcing opening times in advance.

“This is what usually happens: we head to the site, get shot at for a while, then sleep on the ground so we don’t get hit,” he says. “When the [military] vehicles withdraw, we run very quickly until we get aid.”

Alaa, aged 39, says that people ran towards the aid centre only to find that it was still closed. Outside the centre, he says, was a 10-metre wide passageway enclosed by barbed wire on either side.

Footage from the site, taken on Tuesday, shows this area and the barbed wire fencing around it.

“It was a small corridor for the number of people,” Alaa says.

All five eyewitnesses who spoke to Sky News said that GHF employees then attempted to disperse the crowd using gunfire and either gas or pepper spray – resulting in a stampede.

“People began to push until [the Americans] opened the gates,” says Alaa. “Children and some young people fell – and here was the disaster, as people trampled on them due to the pressure of the crowd.”

A GHF spokesperson denied that tear gas was deployed or that shots were fired into the crowd.

“Limited use of pepper spray was deployed, only to safeguard additional loss of life,” they said.

Why did people go to the aid centre?

GHF had not announced any site openings for Wednesday, raising questions over why so many people attempted to access SDS3 this morning.

GHF blamed false reports of site openings, which it said were “fuelling confusion, driving crowds to closed sites, and inciting disorder”.

But witnesses said they attended because GHF has repeatedly failed to announce site openings in advance.

All six openings at SDS3 since 6 July have had no prior announcement. In one case, the site opened after GHF had announced that it would remain closed.

“If the opening time of the aid point was posted on the official page, what happened today would not have happened,” said one person on the GHF’s official WhatsApp channel.

Ahmed says that the GHF’s social media announcements have “no credibility”.

“Most of the time they say it is closed and then it is opened,” he says. “They say they will open the centre at 10am, and then we are surprised that they opened it at 9am.”

Another person who was present at the crush said he had turned up because the site had opened the previous day without any prior announcement.

“Please can you contact any of the security personnel and inform me of the opening time of the aid site before it opens, so that I can bring flour to my family?” one Palestinian asked Sky News.

“We are going through famine and have been without food for three days now.”

Chaos of the system

A Palestinian former employee of GHF told Sky News that he had quit the organisation last month because of its failure to improve its systems.

“The reason I left the organisation is because they did not take into account the suggestion of doing pre-registration like other organisations so that there is a fair and honest system for the crowds,” he says.

“It should be done by ID card,” says Ahmed. “It is not fair for a person to be coming every day, selling the food and keep stealing again. I went almost 20 times and not once did I get a box because I can’t run.”

A GHF spokesperson said: “Today’s incident is part of a larger pattern of Hamas trying to undermine and ultimately end GHF.”

In a written statement, the Hamas-run Government Media Office denied the allegations, saying that GHF “vainly seeks to evade responsibility for one of the most heinous organised massacres committed against the starving in Gaza since the start of the genocide”.

Rising number of GHF casualties

A total of 674 people have been killed while trying to collect food from GHF sites, according to the UN. These numbers do not include the latest casualties from Wednesday’s incident.

Sky News analysis has found that deaths across the Gaza Strip as a whole increase significantly on days when more GHF sites are open.

“We have no more beds to put patients on – we’re putting patients on the ground,” says Dr Muhammad Saqr at Nasser hospital.

“We can no longer deal with any more casualties coming from GHF or other centres.”

Additional reporting by Adam Parker, OSINT editor.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.