ISRAEL carried out an attack in Syria today, targeting what it described as an extremist group preparing assaults on the Druze minority.

The strike, reportedly by a drone, hit the town of Sahnaya, south of Damascus, following an outbreak of violence the day before in Jaramana, a predominantly Druze region, that reportedly left more than a dozen people dead.

It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes in Syria, where Israel says the Sunni Islamists who seized power in December pose a rising threat at its border.

A statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel had conducted a “warning operation” against “an extremist group that was organising to continue attacking the Druze population” in Sahnaya. 

It gave no details of the operation, but the statement warned Syria’s leadership to take action to prevent further harm to the Druze. 

“Israel will not allow harm to the Druze community in Syria out of a deep commitment to our Druze brothers in Israel, who are connected by family and historical ties to their Druze brothers in Syria,” the statement said.

Fighting intensified in Sahnaya on Tuesday and overnight into this morning, with residents reporting indiscriminate shelling and intense street battles.

“We're in extreme panic and fear,” said Sahnaya resident Elias Hanna. 

“The indiscriminate shelling is forcing most of us to stay totally shuttered inside our homes.”

The Syrian Interior Ministry vowed to strike “with an iron fist” anyone seeking to destabilise the country.

Additional reinforcements were reportedly being sent to the area.

Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that a total of 13 people had been killed in the violence, among them two Druze civilians.

While Western leaders have celebrated the downfall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Israel has seized the opportunity to send troops into the country's south to grab land and create a “demilitarised buffer zone.”

Israel, which carried out frequent military strikes while Mr Assad held power, has also lobbied the United States for months to keep Syria weak and decentralised.

Other minority groups are also being violently targeted by the new rulers. 

Human rights groups and local officials have reported that, since December, hundreds of Alawites, the minority sect to which Mr Assad belonged, have been expelled from their homes in Damascus by Syrian security forces.

In March, mass killings of Alawites were reported in western coastal region, triggering further retaliation in the capital.