Syrian soldier killed in Israeli missile attack: State media

Syrian air defences confronted an Israeli missile attack targeting the southern area of the country and a Syrian soldier was killed, state news agency (SANA) said on Thursday, citing a military source.

“At around 12:50am (23:50 GMT Wednesday), the Israeli enemy carried out an air raid with several missiles in the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan and targeting several positions in the south,” according to a military source quoted by SANA.

The Syrian air defences managed to “shoot down most of the missiles”, the source added, who specified that “the aggression caused the death of a soldier and material damage”.

Since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, Israel has staged hundreds of strikes on targets inside areas controlled by the government in Damascus, but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations.

Earlier this month, Syria’s military said Israeli fighter jets fired missiles on the port of Latakia, damaging containers but without inflicting casualties. The port of Latakia is a vital facility where much of Syria’s imports are brought into the war-torn country.

In late November, Israeli missile attacks in the west of Homs province also killed five people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

In two separate Israeli attacks in October, five pro-Iranian militiamen were killed near the Syrian capital Damascus, while nine pro-government fighters were killed near the T4 airbase east of Palmyra in central Syria, the UK-based Syrian rights group said.

Israel has acknowledged that it targets the bases of Iran-allied militias, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, which has fighters deployed in Syria. It says it attacks arms shipments believed to be bound for the militias.

Hezbollah is fighting on the side of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces in the decade-old civil war.

Israel says Iranian presence on its northern frontier is a red line, justifying its strikes on facilities and weapons inside Syria.

The conflict in Syria has killed nearly 500,000 people since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful demonstrations.