Report: 5 Killed, 7 Wounded in Alleged Israeli Airstrike in Syria

Syrian state media reported Friday that five people were killed and seven others were wounded in what it alleged was an Israeli strike in the country’s northwest.

The SANA news agency said the country’s air defenses intercepted missile fire at the town of Masyaf in the Hama countryside.

Syria often boasts about successfully engaging Israeli strikes, in what experts on Syria and the region say is hollow vaunts.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Syria war monitor affiliated with the opposition to President Bashar Assad’s regime, said Israeli aircraft fired at least eight missiles that struck weapons depots and sites belonging to Iranian militias in the Masyaf area, which led to several fires.

Ambulances were seen rushing to the area, it added.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the attack, which the Observatory said was the 12th Israeli strike on Syrian soil since the beginning of 2022.

The IDF rarely comments on reports on its operations in Arab media.

The IDF has, however, acknowledged it has staged hundreds of strikes on Iranian targets in Syria over the years, as part of its efforts to prevent Iran from militarily entrenching itself in the war-torn country, which borders Israel to the north.