DAMASC, Syria (AP) – Israeli warplanes fired several missiles into central Syria early Friday, killing a family of four – including two children – and injuring four others, state media reported.
The SANA state news agency quoted an unnamed military official as saying that the attack took place shortly before dawn, when Israeli warplanes flew over neighboring Lebanon.
The Israeli prime minister’s office on Friday declined to comment on the reports. Israel has launched hundreds of strikes against Iran-linked military targets in Syria over the years. But he rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations.
The Syrian military official said the attack targeted several targets in and around Hama province. He added that Syrian air defense units shot down most of the missiles.
The official said the strike killed a family of four, consisting of a married couple and their two children. The strike also injured four people, including two children, and destroyed three houses on the western edge of the provincial capital Hama, the SANA official said.
State television said the family killed was displaced by the nearly 10-year conflict in Syria.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor monitoring the war in Syria, said the strikes targeted five posts for Iranian-backed fighters based in Syrian army positions.
He said the posts were destroyed, adding that parts of one of the anti-aircraft missiles fell on a residential area causing deaths and injuries among civilians.
It was Israel’s first strike on Syria since President Joe Biden took office.
Tensions have risen in the Middle East in recent weeks around the anniversary of the US assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.
On 13 January, Israeli warplanes carried out intense airstrikes in eastern Syria, apparently targeting the positions and weapons depots of Iran-backed forces. At least 57 fighters have been killed and dozens injured, according to a monitoring group of the Syrian opposition war.
The observer said it had recorded 39 Israeli strikes in Syria in 2020, reaching 135 targets, including military posts, warehouses or vehicles.
Israel sees Iranian rooting on its northern border as a red line and has repeatedly hit Iran-linked facilities and arms convoys for the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
The strikes also come amid escalating low-altitude Israeli war missions in the Lebanese sky, which have provoked nervousness among residents.
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Mroue reported from Beirut.