An Israeli air strike on Syria’s Aleppo province killed at least 36 Syrian soldiers on Friday, according to a war monitor, which added that Hezbollah weapons depots were located in the area.
The Israeli attack targeted an area “near rocket depots belonging to Lebanese group Hezbollah”, said the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has an extensive network of sources in Syria.
“At least 36 soldiers were killed and dozens wounded,” it said.
Syrian state news agency SANA said the pre-dawn strike killed and wounded civilians as well as military personnel.
A Syrian military source told SANA that “at approximately 1:45 am, the Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of Athriya, southeast of Aleppo”, adding that “civilians and military personnel” had been killed and wounded in the strike.
Contacted by AFP from Jerusalem, the Israeli military said it would “not comment on reports in the foreign media”.
Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on targets in Syria since civil war broke out in 2011, mainly targeting Iran-backed forces including militants from Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement as well as Syrian army positions.
The strikes have increased since Israel’s war with Palestinian militant group Hamas, a Hezbollah ally, began on October 7.
On Thursday, two people were injured in an air strike on a residential building in a Damascus suburb, Syrian state media said, blaming the strike on Israel.
“The Israeli enemy launched an aerial attack from the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting a residential building on the outskirts of Damascus,” the Syrian state news agency SANA said, citing a military source.
“The attack left two civilians injured and caused material damage,” the agency added.
The head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, meanwhile told AFP “Explosions were heard” near Damascus “after Israeli strikes on sites belonging to groups affiliated with Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah”.
The Sayyida Zeinab area targeted in the strikes is a stronghold of pro-Iran armed groups.
According to the Observatory, Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have their Syrian headquarters in the area.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes targeting pro-Iran groups fighting alongside the forces of President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s 13-year civil war.
On Tuesday, strikes in Syria killed 16 pro-Iran fighters including an Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the Observatory said.
And earlier this month, an Israeli strike reportedly killed an Iranian Revolutionary Guard and two other people in Banias on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
The Israeli army previously said it had hit about 4,500 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and Syria over the past five months.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in Syria.
