DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) – Israeli warplanes fired several missiles into central Syria early Friday, killing a family of four – including two children – and injuring four other people, state media reported.
Separately, the Israeli military said it shot down a drone that had crossed into Israel from Lebanon. It didn’t say how the plane was shot down. There was no immediate word from the Lebanese side, but the militant Hezbollah group has sent drones into Israel’s airspace in the past.
Syrian state news agency SANA quoted an unnamed military official as saying that the missile attack occurred shortly before sunrise when Israeli warplanes flew over neighboring Lebanon.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on the reports on Friday. Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks on Iran-linked military targets in Syria over the years. But it rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations.
The Syrian military official said the attack targeted several targets in and near central Hama province. It added that Syrian air defense units shot down most of the missiles.
The official said the strike killed a family of four, including the parents and two children. The strike also injured four others, including two children, and destroyed three houses on the western edge of the provincial capital of Hama, SANA said.
State television said the family that was murdered was displaced by the nearly 10-year conflict in Syria.
Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war-monitoring group that follows the Syrian Civil War, said the attacks targeted five posts for Iranian-backed fighters stationed within Syrian army positions.
It said the posts had been destroyed, adding that parts of one of the air defense missiles fell on a residential area, resulting in civilian casualties.
It was Israel’s first attack on Syria since President Joe Biden took office.
Tensions in the Middle East have been high in recent weeks around the anniversary of the US assassination of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard commander, Qassem Soleimani, in Baghdad last January.
Last week, Israeli warplanes carried out intense air strikes in eastern Syria, apparently targeting positions and weapon depots of Iranian-backed forces. At least 57 fighters were killed and dozens injured, monitors said.
The Observatory said it recorded 39 Israeli attacks in Syria in 2020 that hit 135 targets, including military posts, warehouses and vehicles.
Israel views the Iranian bulwark on the northern border as a red line and has repeatedly hit Iranian-linked facilities and arms convoys destined for Hezbollah. The latest strikes also come amid intensified Israeli low-altitude fighter jet missions in the Lebanese skies, which have caused nervousness among residents.
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Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Fares Akram in the Gaza Strip contributed to this report.