Israeli Airstrikes Hit Southern Syria, State Media Claims

YERUSHALAYIM
People inspect the damage after pre-dawn raids on the Mediterranean port region of Latakia, Syria, Wednesday. (SANA/Handout via Reuters)

Israel carried out airstrikes overnight in the southern Syrian province of Quneitra, Syrian state media and a war monitor said Thursday, though there were no reports of casualties.

The strikes came a day after one civilian was killed and six others injured in similar attacks in the northwestern region of Latakia, a bastion of President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority.

Official news agency SANA said there had been “an Israeli attack led by a helicopter in one of Quneitra’s zones” not far from the border with Israel.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported there had been “Israeli strikes.”

The Britain-based war monitor, which relies on an extensive network of sources on the ground, said the strikes targeted the Syrian Army’s 90th Brigade and regime military positions in north Quneitra, near the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.

The missile attack at dawn Wednesday occurred nearly two weeks after the IDF said a Syrian missile that reached deep into Israeli territory and set off air raid sirens near the country’s top-secret nuclear reactor was the result of a misfire and not a deliberate attack.

The missile landed in southern Israel on April 22, prompting Israel to respond with airstrikes on the missile launcher and other targets in Syria.

Israel has launched hundreds of strikes against Iran-linked military targets in Syria over the years but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations.

Israel views Iranian entrenchment on its northern frontier as a red line, and it has repeatedly struck Iran-linked facilities and weapons convoys destined for Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group.

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