News- Middle East: United Nations special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen has strongly condemned Israel’s escalating violations of Syria’s sovereignty, saying the occupying regime must stop its airstrikes “at once.”

“I strongly condemn Israel’s continued and escalating violations of Syria’s sovereignty, including multiple air strikes in Damascus and other cities,” Pedersen said in a post on X.

The UN official demanded that Israel “respect international law and Syria’s sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity and independence.”

He said the airstrikes must “cease at once” and that Israel must stop “endangering Syrian civilians.

The Israeli regime carried out around 20 air raids on Syria late on Friday in what the country’s new rulers condemned as a “dangerous escalation.”

Israeli air strikes targeted areas near the capital, Damascus, and in the west, in Latakia and Hama, as well as in Daraa in the south, the SANA news agency reported.

At least one civilian was killed in a suburb of Damascus, and four others were injured near Hama.

The new wave of airstrikes came hours after Israeli fighter jets struck near the Syrian presidential palace in Damascus.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his minister in charge of military affairs, Israel Katz, said the attack was intended to send a “message” to the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham-led (HTS) administration against deploying forces south of Damascus.

Israeli authorities have also framed the new aggression as an attempt to protect Syria’s Druze minority, which has been clashing with HTS-backed militants in a new wave of sectarian violence, which has left dozens of people dead south of Damascus.

On Saturday, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria rejected that assertion. It said the Israeli attacks threatened to destabilize Syria and were an attempt to divide Syrian communities.

 “Israeli airstrikes and threats of further military intervention—as Israel continues to expand its occupation of the Syrian Golan and attempts to divide various Syrian communities—risk further destabilizing Syria,” it said in a statement.

Since HTS-led militants ousted the government of Bashar al-Assad in December, Israel has ramped up its airstrikes across Syria. It has also moved forces deeper into a buffer zone on the edge of the occupied Golan Heights in violation of a 1947 disengagement agreement with Syria.

Katz, the Israeli minister, said last week that Israel was planning to keep its occupying forces in southern Lebanon and Syria “indefinitely.”

Source: Press TV