At least eight soldiers have been killed by Israeli air strikes in southern Syria, according to Syrian state media, in an attack that the Israeli army said was a response to earlier rocket fire.
Continuous rocket and artillery exchanges with Lebanon’s Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah and allied Palestinian factions across Israel’s northern borders with Lebanon and Syria in recent weeks have raised fears of a new front in Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian factions in Syria’s south have exchanged cross-border fire with Israel several times since last week.
“Around 1:45am [22:45 GMT Tuesday], the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression from the occupied Golan Heights,” Syrian state media said on Wednesday.
The attack also wounded seven soldiers and caused material damage, it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor with a wide network of sources on the ground in the war-ravaged country, put the number of dead soldiers at 11, including four officers.
It said the attacks “destroyed arms depots and a Syrian air defence radar” and also targeted an infantry unit.
On Tuesday evening, the Syrian Observatory had said “fighters loyal to Hezbollah”, which fights alongside government forces in the Syrian conflict, had “launched rockets towards the occupied Syrian Golan” from Syria’s southern province of Deraa.
The Israeli army said on Wednesday its “fighter jets struck military infrastructure and mortars belonging to the Syrian army in response to the launches towards Israel yesterday [Tuesday]”.
Residents in Syria’s Deraa province told the AFP news agency that Israeli planes dropped leaflets after the strike, warning the Syrian army and Palestinian factions against launching attacks towards Israel.