Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi pledged, on Monday, to make Israel “pay” the price for the killing of the leader of the Revolutionary Guards in Syria.

Raisi said in a statement, “There is no doubt that this step is another sign of the frustration, weakness and impotence of the usurping Zionist regime in the region,” adding that Israel “will certainly pay the price for this crime.”

A prominent commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was killed in Syria as a result of an Israeli air strike near Damascus, according to what media outlets in Tehran reported on Monday.

Tasnim Agency reported, “Sayyed Radhi Mousavi, one of the senior commanders of the Revolutionary Guard in Syria, was killed on Monday as a result of the Zionist aggression that targeted the Sayyida Zeinab area on the outskirts of the capital, Damascus, hours ago.”

She explained that he is “one of the oldest advisors to the Revolutionary Guards in Syria.”

The official IRNA news agency, in turn, confirmed the killing of Mousavi, who is responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran.

She indicated that he is “one of the oldest advisors to the Revolutionary Guards in Syria,” and one of the companions of the former commander of the Quds Force in the Revolutionary Guards, Major General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in an American raid in Baghdad in January 2020.

Residents in the Sayyida Zeinab area reported to Agence France-Presse that they heard huge explosions and plumes of smoke rising from a nearby farm area.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights indicated that “Israeli missiles targeted two Hezbollah sites and pro-Iranian groups on two farms in the Sayyida Zeinab area.”

This is not the first time Tehran has announced the killing of members of its armed forces in Syria, as it confirms that they are present on “advisory” missions.

Iran is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and during the ongoing conflict in his country since 2011, it provided political, economic and military support to Damascus.

Over the past years, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes in Syria, targeting mainly Iranian targets and those of the Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Tehran and Damascus, including warehouses and shipments of weapons and ammunition, but also Syrian army sites.

Israel has escalated its targeting of Syrian territory, especially against Hezbollah sites, since the outbreak of war between the Hebrew state and Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7.

Israel rarely confirms the implementation of these strikes, but it confirms that it will confront what it describes as Tehran’s attempts to consolidate its military presence in Syria, especially through Hezbollah.

Since 2011, Syria has witnessed a bloody multi-party conflict, which has caused the death of more than half a million people, massive destruction of infrastructure, and the displacement of more than half of the population inside and outside the country.