Syria on Tuesday accused Israel of committing "state terrorism" after reported Israeli airstrikes killed at least 16 people, including civilians.
"Israeli authorities are increasingly practicing state terrorism," the Syrian foreign ministry said in a statement.
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"The latest heinous Israeli aggression falls within the framework of ongoing Israeli attempts to prolong the crisis in Syria," it added.
Reports said that the strikes late Sunday included about 10 separate sorties that targeted military infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Iranian-backed Shiite militias.
Syria's foreign ministry filed a complaint to the United Nations Security Council over the attack, demanding accountability, according to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency.
It said Israel's "dangerous and hostile" actions would not have been possible without the support of its ally the United States, which protects it in the Security Council.
Syrian officials addressed confirmed the targets were Iranian.
"Most of the sites that were attacked are ones that are run by Iranian forces or sites of the Syrian military storing Iranian weaponry," the officials told the Beirut-based Al-Akhbar newspaper.
Russia, meanwhile, pinned blame on Israel, saying such attacks threaten to destabilize the region.
"We are concerned about this alarming development of the situation," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a press briefing on Tuesday. "Their escalation is of extreme concern."
"The use of force, blatantly violating Syria's sovereignty, not only prevents the normalization of the situation in the country but also carries the potential of destabilizing the region, in which none of the Middle Eastern states can see their national security interests reliably ensured," the Russian official added.
Russia has been directly engaged in the Syrian war since 2015 in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime, which is also backed by Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah – long-time enemies of Israel.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria in recent years against Iranian and Hezbollah targets, and the Jewish state and Russia have set up a "deconfliction" hotline aimed at avoiding accidental clashes.
That mechanism was stretched in September when a Russian military aircraft was mistakenly shot down by Syrian air defenses during Israeli airstrikes.
This article was originally published by i24NEWS.
