Israeli airstrikes said to hit targets in Syrian capital

Israeli fighter jets carried out strikes against targets in the Syrian capital Damascus just before midnight on Sunday, Syria’s state-run media reported.

Syria’s state news agency, SANA, said the Israeli Air Force warplanes launched their missiles from over the Golan Heights, targeting a number of sites in and around Damascus.

SANA, citing a military source, said Syrian air defenses responded to the Israeli incursion, downing some of the missiles. Syria regularly claims to intercept Israeli missiles, though military analysts doubt such assertions.

Still, the state-run media outlet said that “material damage” was caused to the sites that were targeted.

SANA did not report any injuries.

While Israel’s military does not as a rule comment on specific strikes in Syria, it has admitted to conducting hundreds of sorties against Iran-backed groups attempting to gain a foothold in the country, over the last decade.

The Israel Defense Forces says it attacks arms shipments believed to be bound for those groups, chief among them Lebanon’s Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy. Additionally, airstrikes attributed to Israel have repeatedly targeted Syrian air defense systems.

Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday that Israeli missiles had targeted sites used by and that ambulances had transported people wounded in the strikes.

The observatory said the attack was the 17th by Israel on Syrian territory since the beginning of the year.

The alleged strike on Sunday night would mark the first since Syria was readmitted to the Arab League after a 12-year suspension, on May 7.

The last reported Israeli strike in Syria occurred on May 2, when the Aleppo International Airport was targeted. The attack killed one Syrian soldier and put the airport out of service for several days, state media said at the time.

AP contributed to this report.