The Strategic Significance of Sayyeda Zaynab Area in Southern Damascus Amid Increased Israeli Airstrikes

The southern suburb of Damascus, specifically “Sayyeda Zaynab” and its surroundings in the Rif Dimashq governorate, holds significant strategic value for Iranian militias and the Lebanese Hezbollah, akin to the southern suburbs of Beirut. This area has become a major hub for the presence of Iranian-supported militias, including Hezbollah, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iraqi militias, and other allied groups. The region is also notable for being home to the shrine of “Sayyeda Zaynab,” which has transformed into a key stronghold for Iranian presence in Syria, making it a repeated target of Israeli airstrikes aimed at undermining the influence of Iranian and Iraqi militias in the country.

Since the beginning of 2024, Israel has intensified its airstrikes on this area, targeting military and logistical facilities belonging to Iranian militias and Hezbollah. These strikes have resulted in the deaths of numerous military leaders within these groups, alongside a significant number of casualties among Iranian militia members. However, the attacks have not been limited to military targets, but have also affected civilians, whether they are Syrians or from other nationalities.

According to documentation from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Israel has targeted the Sayyeda Zaynab area 9 times since the start of this year. These strikes have resulted in the deaths of 28 military personnel, including 11 from Lebanese Hezbollah, along with the martyrdom of 6 civilians.

Here are the details of the attacks as documented by the Syrian Observatory since the beginning of the year:

- **January 29:** Eight people were killed, including two members of Hezbollah, and three Syrians—one of whom was an aide to an IRGC officer, while the others were Syrian contractors guarding farms—due to an Israeli strike on a site in Sayyeda Zaynab, Rif Dimashq.

- **February 2:** Three people were killed, including a prominent IRGC leader and his aide, along with an Iraqi, as a result of Israeli airstrikes targeting a farm on the Aqrbah-Sayyeda Zaynab road, near the vocational school and electronic warfare command south of Damascus.

- **February 28:** Two members of Hezbollah-affiliated militias, who were Syrian nationals, were killed, and six others suffered severe injuries and burns due to Israeli strikes targeting two buildings within a militia training center, located 600 meters apart on the Babila-Sayyeda Zaynab road.

- **March 28:** An unidentified individual was killed, and five guards at a site in the Bahdaliyah area surrounding Sayyeda Zaynab, Rif Dimashq were injured as a result of an Israeli strike.

- **June 9:** Israeli airstrikes targeted the cultural center affiliated with the Iraqi al-Nujaba Movement, which is loyal to Iran, in the Sayyeda Zaynab area, as well as a training camp belonging to the same group.

- **June 26:** A sixty-year-old man died from injuries sustained in Israeli strikes on the Sayyeda Zaynab area days earlier, following the death of his wife, who had also been killed in the strike. Thus, the number of civilian martyrs rises to two: a man and his wife, both from the towns of Nubl and Zahra in Aleppo, who were visiting the religious sites in Sayyeda Zaynab.

Additionally, two individuals were killed—one a Syrian national working with Hezbollah, and the other an Iranian militia member of a non-Syrian nationality—while 11 others were injured.

- **September 20:** Israel assassinated a leader of the Iraqi Hezbollah militia, Muhammad Ali al-Khafaji, nicknamed "Abu Haidar," using a missile from a drone near the Sayyeda Zaynab area south of Damascus. He was in his forties and hails from the Ain area near Karbala, Iraq.

- **November 4:** Israel launched three strikes targeting three separate farms in the south and southeast of Sayyeda Zaynab, Rif Dimashq, resulting in the deaths of two Hezbollah members and serious injuries to five others.

- **November 10:** Israel targeted an apartment in a building in Sayyeda Zaynab where Lebanese families reside, leading to human losses totaling 23, including 9 fatalities, with 4 civilians (a woman and three of her children) of Syrian nationality, 5 individuals including a Hezbollah leader, while the identities of the rest remained unknown, along with 14 others sustaining various injuries, including children and women, as a result of the strike.