Mourners attend funeral of man killed in Israeli airstrikes on Syrian city of Daraa

DARAA, Syira (AP) — Syria’s foreign ministry on Tuesday condemned the latest Israeli airstrikes on targets in the south of the country, calling the attack a violation of international law.

Hundreds of people gathered for the funeral of one of the victims of an attack on the city of Daraa where the 14th anniversary was being marked of a shooting by government forces that sparked the uprising against former President Bashar Assad’s government.

Syria’s Civil Defense said that three people were killed and many others wounded in a strike on Monday on Daraa, including four children, a woman and three civil defense volunteers.

Dr. Nizar Rashdan, director of the southwestern city’s General Hospital, told The Associated Press that the airstrike hit an abandoned army barracks near a residential area killing three and wounding 25.

Yasser al-Sharaa was standing in front of his shop when the strike occurred. “We are civilians living here. The children were scared and the building was damaged,” al-Sharaa said. “Thank God my losses were material, with no human losses.”

The Israeli military said it had hit “command centers and military sites containing weapons and military vehicles belonging to the old Syrian regime, which (the new army) are trying to make reusable.”

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Israel’s military has destroyed much of the now-dissolved Syrian army assets in hundreds of airstrikes after Islamist groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, whose roots comes from al-Qaida’s branch in Syria, captured Damascus following the ouster of Assad last December.

The commemoration of the March 18, 2011, shooting in Daraa that sparked the uprising against Assad’s government was held at the city’s Omari Mosque where hundreds of people marched Tuesday chanting “Oh Gaza, we will support you to death.”

The body of a young man who was killed in Monday’s airstrike was carried in a coffin draped in Syrian flag. During the funeral, Ahmad al-Masalmeh carried a banner that read in English, Arabic and Hebrew, “Netanyahu and Assad are two sides of the same coin.”

“Today marks the spark of the revolution that began in Daraa against Bashar Assad,” al-Masalmeh said. “Thank God we are victorious. We are united with the Palestinian people and we will always be God willing.”

Israeli forces have seized territory in southern Syria, saying the operations aim to protect its borders. Israeli officials have also said that they will not allow the new Syrian military south of Damascus, claiming that they aim to protect the Druze, a minority sect present in both Syria and Israel.

The interim Syrian government has made three complaints to the U.N. Security Council against Israel since Assad’s fall.

The most recent complaint, submitted on March 3, but circulated on Tuesday, said that Israel’s statements “constitute blatant interference in the internal affairs of Syria” and reflect “hostile intentions and goal of undermining the security and stability of Syria and establishing a new occupation on Syrian territory as a fait accompli.”

It called on the U.N. to “take urgent action” to make Israel stop “its attacks on Syrian towns and villages and their civilian populations” and to “withdraw completely, immediately and unconditionally from the Syrian territory into which its forces have recently advanced” and comply with a 1974 ceasefire agreement between the two countries.

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Associated Press staff writers Bassem Mroue and Abby Sewell in Beirut and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.