SYRIA was hit by a series of Israeli air strikes today, leaving one soldier wounded.

The attacks on sites in southern Syria were reported by the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, which said that air defences had shot down some of the missiles and that they came from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said that Israeli strikes had also hit two military sites in the Qalamoun mountains north-east of Damascus, an area where Lebanese group Hezbollah is operating. 

One of the targets was a weapons shipment, the observatory said, adding that the attacks were the 24th time Israel has struck inside Syria since the beginning of 2024. 

They have killed 43 fighters with various groups, including Hezbollah and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, and nine civilians.

Israel has escalated its missile attacks on Syria over the past five months, carrying out some 4,500 strikes.

They come against the backdrop of the war in Gaza and continued clashes between Hezbollah and the Israeli military on the Lebanon-Israel border.

The Israeli army vowed in a statement to “not allow for any attempted actions which could lead to the entrenchment of Hezbollah on the Syrian front.”