Israeli strikes kill 16 in central Syria

“The number of martyrs resulting from the Israeli aggression on a number of sites in the vicinity of Masyaf has risen to 16 martyrs and 36 wounded including six critically,” official news agency SANA reported on Monday citing a medical source.

The attack on Sunday also sparked a fire and caused material damage near the city of Masyaf, west of Hama, according to SANA, Syria’s official news agency.

An unidentified security official told SANA that Israel launched an “aerial aggression” from Lebanese airspace against several Syrian military instalments. The source added that Syrian air defences confronted and shot down some of the missiles.

Israeli jets have launched attacks against Syria from Lebanon, likely to avoid Syrian airspace – where multiple regional and international forces, including those of Russia and the United States – operate.

The director of the public hospital in Masyaf said the casualties were civilians, SANA reported.

Throughout Syria’s 13-year war, Israel has regularly carried out air raids in the country – mostly targeting Iran-linked sites. But the Israeli military does not confirm or comment on its operations in Syria.

Sunday’s attack comes amid growing regional tensions, with Iranian officials still pledging to respond to the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.

Iran, which maintains a military presence in Syria, had promised “harsh punishment” for Israel over the killing, but no Iranian attack has materialised more than 40 days after the assassination.

Iran launched a direct attack on Israel with hundreds of drones and missiles in April in response to the Israeli bombing of an Iranian diplomatic facility in Damascus.

Israeli and US air defences in the region helped shoot down most of the projectiles, minimising the damage of the attack.

Separately, Hezbollah carried out its own attack against Israel on August 25, responding to the killing of one of its top commanders in an Israeli air raid in Beirut which also killed several civilians.

Israel had claimed that it thwarted the operation with a preemptive attack, but the Iran-allied Lebanese group stressed it successfully hit an Israeli military intelligence site near Tel Aviv.

Cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel have continued on a near-daily basis. Hezbollah announced it is targeting military sites in northern Israel and Syria’s occupied Golan Heights in support of Palestinians in Gaza, where the ongoing Israeli offensive has killed more than 40,900 people.

The Lebanese group has promised to continue its military operations until the war on Gaza ends, while Israeli officials have promised to push Hezbollah off the border, including by all-out war if necessary.