Israeli airstrikes on Syria’s Aleppo province have killed more than 40 people, including members of Hezbollah and a large number of Syrian soldiers in an area near the militant Lebanese organisation’s weapons depots, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.
As many as 42 people were killed in what contradictory reports described as air and drone strikes in the early hours of Friday that hit missile depots for Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group in Aleppo’s southern suburb of Jibreen, near Aleppo’s international airport, and a nearby town that houses a military facility.
According to reports, at least 36 Syrian soldiers and six Hezbollah fighters were killed in the strikes, and dozens more people injured. There was no immediate statement from Israeli officials. Israel frequently launches strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria but rarely acknowledges them.
“At least 36 soldiers were killed and dozens wounded,” said the group, which has an extensive network of sources in Syria. “It is worth noting that this is the highest death toll ever among regime forces in a single Israeli attack in Syrian territory.”
Hezbollah added that Israeli strikes also targeted air-defence forces sites in al-Saferah, while explosions were heard in the Kafr Joum area, in western Aleppo.
Six Hezbollah members were among those killed in the strikes, two security sources told Reuters, who had earlier put the death toll at 38. The Syrian state news agency, Sana, said civilians were among the dead and injured.
A security source told Reuters that one of the dead was a local Hezbollah field commander whose brother had been killed in an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon in November.
Syria’s defence ministry said Israeli strikes hit several areas in the south-eastern part of Aleppo province at about 1:45am (22:45 GMT on Thursday), killing a number of civilians and military personnel. It said the airstrikes coincided with drone attacks carried out from Idlib and western rural Aleppo that the ministry described as having been conducted by “terrorist organisations” against civilians in Aleppo and its surroundings.
The Israeli military said it would “not comment on reports in the foreign media”.
Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes on targets in Syria since the civil war began there in 2011, as it seeks to cut off Hezbollah supply routes to Lebanon.
Israel and Hezbollah also have been trading fire across Lebanon’s southern border in parallel with the Gaza war. More than 270 Hezbollah fighters and 50 civilians, including medics and journalists, have been killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon. About a dozen Israeli troops and half as many civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
The frequency of these strikes has increased since Israel’s war in Gaza began after the 7 October Hamas attacks, which resulted in about 1,200 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, and the taking of about 250 hostages. About 130 captives remain in Gaza, including 34 presumed dead. Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 32,552 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry there.
While the Iran-backed Hezbollah is Lebanese, it has sent militants into Syria to support its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, since an uprising against his rule erupted in 2011. The uprising quickly turned into a civil war, drawing in regional and global players. Hezbollah has continued to operate in the country since.
With Agence France-Presse and Reuters
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