Agencies-Gaza post
Syria’s air defence faces Israeli missiles’
The Syrian government’s air defence systems faced Israeli rockets over the coastal region of Tartus and in central Syria, near the border with Lebanon, state media reported on Sunday.
“Our air defences are intercepting hostile targets in the sky of Tartus and in the air of the Qalamoun Mountain range near the Lebanese border,” Syria’s official news agency SANA reported.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor added ambulances had rushed to the scene of the strikes in Tartus.
“Israeli strikes targeted military sites of the regime forces and Iranian militias are present in the southern countryside of Tartus, where several missiles landed in the vicinity of Abu Afsa village, and at an air defence base and radar in the area,” reported the observatory, which has a wide network of sources inside Syria.
On Friday, Israeli shelling wounded two civilians in southern Syria around the occupied Golan Heights, according to state media.
Last month, an Israeli strike near Damascus killed three Syrian fighters, state media reported at the time, with the observatory saying the strike hit a military facility and an “Iranian weapons depot”.
There was no direct official reaction from Israel.
Since the civil war began in Syria in 2011, Israel has started hundreds of air missiles inside the country, targeting government positions as well as allied Iran-backed forces and Hizbollah fighters.
While Israel seldom remarks on individual strikes in Syria, the military has protected them as necessary to prevent its arch-foe Iran from gaining a foothold on its doorstep.
The conflict in Syria began with the brutal repression of peaceful demonstrations and escalated to pull in foreign powers and global terrorists.
The war killed nearly half a million people and caused around half of the country’s pre-war population from their houses.
