Syrian regime soldiers were killed and injured on Thursday morning following Israeli airstrikes on regime positions in central Syria and near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The German Press Agency DPA quoted a source close to the Syrian regime as saying, "one soldier was killed and three others wounded in Israeli bombing of Shayrat airport in southeastern Homs province."
The state-run Syrian news agency (SANA) reported that Israeli military planes fired in the early hours several missiles from over Lebanese airspace towards the central area of Syria.
"Enemy missiles were immediately dealt with, preventing any of them from reaching their targets," the source said, according to SANA. The source did not specify which area was targeted in the central sector of Syria.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the airstrikes targeted the Shayrat and Dabaa air bases in the central province of Homs. It said the strikes were also aimed at targets in the southern region of Quneitra on the edge of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. It had no word on damage or casualties.
Shayrat is a military airport which was also bombed in April 2017 by the United States after the regime launched a chemical weapons attack from there, killing 80 people in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, which was held by anti-Assad rebels at the time.
Another Israeli attack hit a regime position in Quneitra province in southwestern Syria, near the Israeli occupied Golan Heights, killing one regime soldier.
Since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting regime troops as well as allied Iranian forces and fighters from Hezbollah.
It is rare for Israel to claim such strikes directly.
In mid-February, Israeli strikes on Damascus airport killed seven Syrian and Iranian fighters.
