The Israeli military said Monday it struck several targets in Syria in response to rocket attacks, amid fears of a regional extension of the war with Palestinian Hamas.
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“A combat aircraft recently attacked the launchers from which the shots were fired from Syrian territory towards Israeli territory yesterday evening (Sunday evening, Editor’s note),” the Israeli army said on X ( formerly Twitter).
She had reported several hours earlier of several rocket attacks, which fell in an “open area”.
According to Israeli public radio Kan, the sites struck are in the Deraa region of southern Syria and are linked to Iran’s allies.
In a statement, the Syrian Ministry of Defense for its part indicated that “the Israeli enemy” had “carried out an aerial attack from the occupied Golan, targeting two positions of our armed forces in the Daraa region”.
He only reported material damage.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), the strikes notably targeted “an artillery battalion” in the province of Deraa.
This NGO based in the United Kingdom but which has a vast network of sources in Syria specified that it is Syrian and Palestinian groups linked to Hezbollah which are launching the rockets from the Daraa region.
Since October 7, the date of the bloody Hamas attack in Israel, the Israeli air force has carried out several raids in Syria, targeting in particular the airports of Aleppo and Damascus.
Tensions are also high on the Israeli-Lebanese border, where there are almost daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and pro-Palestinian armed groups, including the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, said on Sunday that it had shot down an Israeli drone over Israeli territory with a surface-to-air missile. On Monday, it announced the death of one of its fighters, bringing the total of its militants killed since the start of the conflict to 47.
The Israeli army, for its part, reported new shots coming from Lebanon towards the area of Har Dov and Kiryat Shmona and said it had responded.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian territory since the start of the war there in 2011.
Its air force notably targeted forces supported by Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah as well as the Syrian army.