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weapons production sites, combat aircraft and missiles.

In addition, missile vessels struck the Syrian naval facilities of Al-Bayda port and Latakia port, where 15 Syrian naval vessels were docked.

Israeli officials said the strikes across Syria were aimed at destroying strategic weapons and military infrastructure to prevent them being used by rebel groups that drove Assad from power, some of which grew from movements linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State.

“There is absolutely no basis under international law to preventively or preemptively disarm a country you don’t like,” said Ben Saul, UN special rapporteur on the promotion of human rights while countering terrorism.

“If that were the case, it would be a recipe for global chaos,” he told reporters in Geneva, pointing out that “lots of countries have adversaries they would like to see without weapons”.

“This is completely lawless.”

Saul, who like other special rapporteurs is an independent expert who does not speak on behalf of the United Nations, said Israel’s strikes on neighbouring Lebanon were different, “because there is a hot conflict there”.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden’s top aides were heading to the Middle East seeking to advance efforts to reach an elusive Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal and help ensure a smooth transition in Syria following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to visit Jordan and Turkey, while US national security adviser Jake Sullivan planned stops in Israel, Qatar and Egypt in coming days, US officials said.

Israel stepped up its campaign in south Lebanon in late September after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah in support of Hamas since the violence erupted in the Palestinian enclave on October 7, 2023.

While Assad was propped up by Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, along with Russia and Iran, Saul decried that the current strikes were “a continuation of what Israel has been doing in Syria for at least a decade”.

He pointed to “many, many hundreds of preventative attacks” launched by Israeli forces into Syria over the years against Hezbollah weapons dumps and storage facilities, despite the fact that the Lebanon-based militants were not attacking Israel from Syria.

“That would be the only circumstance in which it could use self defence against Hezbollah in Syria,” Saul said.

“But you can’t just follow your enemy wherever they are in the world, and bomb them in some third country, which has been Israel’s approach.”

George Katrougalos, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion of democratic and equitable international order, meanwhile described Israel’s actions in Syria as “part of a pattern”.

“It is another case of the lawlessness that Israel demonstrates in the area: attacks without provocation against a sovereign state.”