Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes early on Thursday near Damascus, wounding eight soldiers, Syrian state media said, while an opposition war monitoring group said the strikes targeted army positions as well as Iran-backed militias, killing 12.
Syrian state news agency SANA said air defenses shot down most of the missiles in the suburbs of the capital and the country's south before they reached their targets. It said the Israeli warplanes fired the missiles while flying over the Golan Heights and neighboring Lebanon.
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SANA quoted an unnamed Syrian military official as saying that eight soldiers were wounded in the airstrikes, adding that they caused material damage as well.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the Syrian war through a network of activists on the ground, said the airstrikes occurred after midnight on Wednesday, hitting Syrian army positions and those of Iranian-backed militiamen west and south of the capital, as well as the Mazzeh military air base in Damascus.
Breaking | Syrian Air Defenses Response israeli Missiles Over Damascus City pic.twitter.com/t0cyvJeDq8
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A "large number of missiles" hit multiple positions in these areas, triggering a fire at the Scientific Research Center in the Damascus suburb of Jamraya. The Observatory said the strikes killed 12 Syrians and non-Syrian Iran-backed fighters, adding that the deaths occurred in the southern village of Izraa and the southern Damascus suburb of Kisweh.
There was no immediate comment from Israel.
Israel does not usually comment on reports concerning its airstrikes in neighboring Syria, though it has recently acknowledged striking Iranian targets there. Iranian-backed fighters, including those of Lebanon's terrorist Hezbollah group, have joined Syria's war and are fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad's government forces.
Last month, the Syrian army said Israeli jets attacked the main T4 airbase in Homs province.
