2 Syrian soldiers wounded in Israeli air attack against Damascus

The state-run news agency SANA reported early on Wednesday morning that Syrian air defences had confronted Israeli missiles launched at 12.25 am local time (21:25 GMT) from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and “shot down most of them”.

SANA, citing military sources, added two Syrian soldiers were injured in the missile attack and there were “some material losses”.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor based in the United Kingdom, said the air attacks marked the 20th time Israel has struck targets in Syria so far this year.

The attacks targeted military positions near the airport in the town of Dimas as well as the Beirut-Damascus highway west of the capital, where elite members of the Syrian army are stationed, according to the monitor.

The observatory, which has a vast network of sources in the war-torn country, said the missiles hit warehouses of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, an ally of the Syrian government, causing a fire.

Israel has carried out hundreds of air attacks on government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years but it rarely acknowledges responsibility.

Israel has also attacked the international airports in Damascus and the northern Syrian city of Aleppo several times over the past few years, often putting the facilities out of commission temporarily.

Damascus has repeatedly complained to the United Nations over the Israeli assaults, urging the world body’s Security Council to take action against Tel Aviv’s crimes. Its demands, however, have fallen on deaf ears.