Israeli strikes on the Homs region, in central Syria, left four dead, including civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), with the Syrian Defense Ministry citing an unspecified number of civilians killed or injured.
“Four people were killed, including two civilians, in Israeli strikes on the city of Homs,” OSDH director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP in Beirut.
The Syrian Defense Ministry indicated that “the Israeli enemy carried out airstrikes from the region north of Tripoli (Lebanon), targeting several targets in the city of Homs and its surroundings. […] killing and injuring a number of civilians.”
Syrian state television broadcast footage showing rescuers searching through the rubble of what appeared to be a collapsed building, and carrying a person on a stretcher.
According to Abdel Rahman, the affected building in Homs completely collapsed.
Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria, mainly targeting pro-Iranian forces, notably the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah allied with the Syrian regime, as well as the Syrian army.
These attacks have intensified since the start, on October 7, of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, ally of Hezbollah.
In January, Israeli strikes near Damascus killed eight people, including pro-Iranian fighters, according to the OSDH.
Israel rarely confirms its strikes targeting Syria, but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran, which supports President Bashar al-Assad’s government, to expand its presence there.
Last week, the United States also carried out strikes against groups supported by Iran in Syria and Iraq, killing several dozen people, in retaliation for a deadly attack against its troops in Jordan.