Five killed in Israeli air strike on Syria — state media

DAMASCUS  — An Israeli air strike on central Syria killed five people including a civilian, Syrian state media said on Friday.

"The Israeli enemy carried out air strikes with a burst of missiles... targeting some points in the central region," the official news agency SANA said, quoting a military source.

"The aggression resulted in the death of five martyrs."

It cited the military source as adding that seven people were wounded including a child, and there were material losses.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said that "four soldiers [from] "air defence" crew, including an officer with the rank of lieutenant, were killed".

It added that seven soldiers were wounded.

"Israeli warplanes launched at least eight missiles on weapons depots and Iranian sites in the Masyaf area" in the central province of Hama, said the British-based observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria.

The latest strike follows one on April 27 which, according to the observatory, killed 10 combatants, among them six Syrian soldiers, in the deadliest such raid since the start of 2022.

It said an ammunition depot and several positions linked to Iran’s military presence in Syria were among the targets.

Government media in Syria confirmed four casualties in those strikes.

The Israeli forces told AFP on Friday that they do not comment on reports in the foreign media.

While Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria, it has acknowledged mounting hundreds since 2011, targeting government positions as well as allied Iran-backed forces and Shiite militant group Hizbollah.

The Israeli military has defended them as necessary to prevent its arch-foe Iran from gaining a foothold on its doorstep.

In March, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said that an Israeli rocket strike had killed two Guards officers in Syria.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is the ideological arm of the Iranian military and the elite Quds Force is the Guard’ foreign operations arm, listed as a terrorist group by the US.

Iran says it has deployed its forces in Syria at the invitation of Damascus and only as advisers.

The conflict in Syria  has killed nearly 500,000 people and displaced half of the country’s population.