(Damascus) Five Syrian soldiers were injured on Sunday after midnight in an airstrike attributed to Israel in central Syria, the official Syrian news agency SANA reported.
It is the third Israeli strike in Syria in more than three days, after Damascus was targeted on two consecutive nights, on March 30 and 31, by Jewish state airstrikes, the first injuring two Syrian soldiers.
“Today around 12:35 a.m. (5:35 p.m. EST), the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial assault from northeast Beirut targeting positions in the city of Homs (center, editor’s note) and his province,” SANA said Sunday, citing a military source.
The source added that several missiles were intercepted by the Syrian air defense, reporting five soldiers injured and material damage.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), Israeli missiles targeted several military positions of Syrian regime and Iranian-affiliated forces in Homs, where explosions were heard and a fire broke out in a research center in particular.
The NGO, which has an extensive network of sources in the war-torn country, reported “certain reports” of dead and injured, adding that ambulances were heading to the scene of the attack.
Israel has carried out seven airstrikes in Syria this month, according to the OSDH.
In addition to the two raids in Damascus this week, Israel notably twice struck the airport in Aleppo, a city in the north of the country where groups under the control of Iran and its allies have great influence.
A first raid killed three people on March 7, and the second caused material damage on March 22.
On February 19, 15 people were killed in an Israeli strike on Damascus, which targeted a neighborhood housing the headquarters of several security services, according to the OSDH.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in neighboring Syria against regime positions as well as Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces, allies of Damascus and sworn enemies of Israel. He rarely comments on strikes on a case-by-case basis, but says he wants to prevent Iran from gaining a foothold on its doorstep.
Syria is ravaged by a civil war, triggered by the repression in 2011 of pro-democracy demonstrations and which has become more complex over the years with the intervention of several countries and foreign armed groups.
