• Israel’s military said earlier that its jets had struck Syrian army infrastructure and mortar launchers

BEIRUT: An Israeli attack on military positions in southwest Syria on Wednesday killed eight soldiers and wounded seven more, the Syrian state news agency (SANA) reported.

Citing a military source, SANA said Israel’s “aerial aggression” targeted a number of military positions near the southwestern city of Daraa. The strike also caused material damage, it reported.

The attack took place at around 1:45 a.m. on Wednesday (2245 GMT on Tuesday), SANA reported.

Israel’s military said earlier that its jets had struck Syrian army infrastructure and mortar launchers early on Wednesday in what it described as a response to rocket launches from Syria toward Israel.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that its “fighter jets struck military infrastructure and mortar launchers belonging to the Syrian Army in response to the launches toward Israel yesterday (Tuesday)”.

Fears are growing that Israel’s war with Hamas will create wider regional turmoil, and especially further inflame existing tensions with Syria and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon.

The war erupted after militants from the Palestinian Islamist movement stormed across the Gaza border on October 7 and went on a rampage that Israeli officials say killed more than 1,400 people.

They also snatched more than 220 hostages in the worst-ever attack in Israel’s history, which has prompted a ferocious Israeli bombardment of the coastal Palestinian territory which Gaza’s Hamas rulers say has killed 5,791 people.

Israeli strikes on Sunday put war-torn Syria’s two main airports out of service, according to Syrian state media.

While Israeli strikes have repeatedly caused the grounding of flights at the government-controlled airports in the capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, it is the second time since this month’s conflict between Israel and Hamas began that the two sites have been struck simultaneously.

Earlier in the month, Israeli strikes targeted Aleppo airport, wounding five people, a war monitor reported, and also put it out of service, according to the authorities.

During more than a decade of war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its northern neighbour, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, as well as Syrian army positions.

Israel rarely comments on individual strikes it carries out on Syria, but it has repeatedly said it will not allow its arch-foe Iran, which supports President Bashar al-Assad’s government, to expand its presence there.

Reuters & AFP