An Iranian flag hangs as smoke rises after what the Iranian media said was an Israeli strike on a building close to the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, April 1, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Firas Makdesi

Iran’s consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus was flattened on Monday in what Syrian and Iranian media described as an Israeli air strike, a startling apparent escalation of conflict in the Middle East that would pit Israel against Iran and its regional allies.

A Lebanese security source, speaking to Reuters, said one of the dead was Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a US-designated terrorist organization. Iranian state television said several Iranian diplomats had been killed.

Reuters reporters at the scene in the Mezzeh district of the Syrian capital saw smoke rising from rubble of a building that had been flattened, and emergency vehicles parked outside. An Iranian flag hung from a pole in front of the debris. The Syrian interior and foreign ministers were both spotted at the scene.

Israel, which has repeatedly hit Iranian targets during the six-month war in Gaza, declined to comment on the incident, following its usual practice. An Israeli military spokesperson said: “We do not comment on reports in the foreign media.”

Iran’s Tasnim news agency said five people were killed in the Israeli strike. The Iranian ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, who was not injured, similarly said at least five people had been killed in the attack and that Tehran’s response would be “harsh.” Syria’s SANA state news agency reported an unspecified number of deaths and injuries.

Since the Iranian-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Israel has ramped up airstrikes in Syria against Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group and the IRGC, both of which support the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Monday’s attack was the first time the vast embassy compound itself had been hit.

On Friday, Israel carried out its deadliest strikes in months on northern Syria’s Aleppo province and killed a senior Hezbollah fighter in Lebanon. It has also regularly struck the airports in Aleppo and Damascus in an attempt to halt Iran’s weapons transfers to its proxies.

The Israeli military said on Monday it had stopped advanced weapons, including shrapnel charges and anti-tank mines, from being smuggled into the West Bank from Iran.

It said the weapons were uncovered during an operation against a Lebanese-based operative of Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, who it said was recruiting agents to smuggle weapons and carry out attacks in the West Bank.