(Beirut) Two Israeli strikes targeted a coastal town and central Syria at war on Wednesday evening, killing a little girl according to official Syrian media, and three Syrian fighters from Lebanese Hezbollah according to an NGO.
Since the start of the civil war in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes targeting the army of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the pro-Iranian groups established there and supporting it.
“The Israeli enemy launched an air attack (…) targeting a site in the center and a residential building in the town of Banyas on the coast, killing a little girl and injuring ten civilians,” the Syrian Defense Ministry said in a statement. a statement.
Earlier, the official Sana news agency claimed that Syrian air defenses had come into action and had “intercepted enemy targets in the skies over the city of Homs”, in the center of the country.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) for its part indicated that Israel had targeted “at least one military site […] in the Homs region.
“Three Syrian members of Lebanese Hezbollah were killed,” added the NGO based in the United Kingdom and which has a network of sources in Syria.
The Observatory noted that the region was home to positions of Iranian-backed groups, including the powerful Hezbollah, deployed to Syria to support the regime amid the civil war that began in 2011.
The NGO also confirmed that a little girl had been killed in Banyas, and added that 20 civilians had been injured there.
At the beginning of March, three people, including an Iranian soldier, were killed by an airstrike attributed to Israel on Banyas, which was generally spared from raids.
Israeli strikes have intensified since the start of the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip in October.
On Saturday, an Israeli drone strike in central Syria, near the border with Lebanon, killed two Hezbollah fighters, the OSDH said.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on the strikes but have repeatedly said they would not allow its archenemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.
1er April, a strike attributed to Israel targeted the Iranian consulate in Damascus, notably killing senior Iranian officers. Tehran responded on April 13 by carrying out an unprecedented attack against Israel.