Beirut | Four people, including at least two civilians, were killed in Israeli bombing raids that targeted early morning areas in central Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) reported.
According to this UK-based NGO, which has a vast network of sources in warring Syria, the Israeli bombings targeted the area around three villages west of Homs, where Syrian fighters loyal to Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah are based. .
The bombings killed four, including two civilians, said OSDH without being able to determine whether the other two dead were civilians or soldiers.
The official Syrian agency Sana, citing a military source, previously announced that two civilians were killed and seven others injured in the strikes.
“The (Israeli) aggression resulted in the death of two civilians and injured six soldiers as well as one civilian,” the military source said.
The strikes targeted “certain positions in the central region” of the country, Sana added without further clarification. According to this state media, the Syrian air defense “repulsed the aggression and shot down most” of the missiles.
Since the start of the war in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syrian territory, notably targeting positions of Iranian forces and Lebanese Hezbollah, major allies of the Damascus regime.
Israel very rarely confirms its attacks in neighboring Syria, but regularly asserts that the Hebrew state will not allow that country to become the beachhead for the forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its sworn enemy.
Asked Wednesday morning by AFP, an Israeli military spokesperson said: “We do not comment on information published in foreign media.”
On November 8, two Syrian soldiers were injured in Israeli strikes against targets in central and western Syria, according to Sana.
In late October, five pro-Iranian fighters in Syria were killed in an Israeli strike on targets near Damascus, according to OSDH.
According to this NGO, a new Israeli airstrike in central Syria left nine dead among fighters allied to the Syrian government on October 14.