Israel’s Strikes on Syria: Here’s the Latest
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani said that Tehran “strongly condemns the criminal attack by the Zionist regime on Syrian soil,” and that Israel’s backers should “stop supporting and arming it.” At least 14 people were killed and 43 more injured in Israeli air strikes on central Syria on September 8, according to the Syrian state news agency Israeli warplanes flying over north-western Lebanon launched missiles at “a number of military sites in the central region” of Syria at about 23:20 local time (20:20 GMT) on Sunday, a Syrian military source told SANA.
“Our air defense systems confronted the missiles and shot down some of them,” the source said, calling the strikes “an air aggression by the Israeli enemy.”
The attack sparked a fire and caused material damage near the city of Masyaf in the Hama province, SANA reported.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based group, has meanwhile claimed that “13 violent explosions rang out in the zone housing scientific research centers in Masyaf where pro-Iranian groups and weapons development experts are present.” The SOHR is run by a single person and has repeatedly been accused by Syrian war analysts of false reporting.
There was no immediate comment on the strike from Israel, which typically refrains from commenting on its attacks on Syria that have been intermittent for years.
Damascus repeatedly accused the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of carrying out multiple strikes on the Syrian territory. The IDF has taken responsibility only for a small part of those attacks.According to the Jewish state, the IDF has been targeting Iranian and pro-Iranian troops allegedly deployed on Syria’s soil – an allegation that Tehran dismisses.