Israel strikes Syria, hits deeper in Lebanon as Hezbollah tensions grow

BEIRUT — Israel launched an airstrike on southern Lebanon and is also suspected of an attack on southern Syria, both over the last 24 hours, reportedly striking Hezbollah targets as fears grow of an all-out war in the region.

The attack in Syria coincided with Israeli airstrikes on the city of Nabatieh, in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire since last October.

According to the Lebanese state-run National News Agency (NNA), Israeli warplanes fired missiles that flattened a two-story building in Nabatieh and heavily damaged surrounding structures and vehicles. NNA reported five civilians injured in the attack.

The missile strike on Nabatieh was the first Israeli attack on the city since cross-border hostilities began Oct. 8, a day after the war in Gaza erupted. The Israelis had previously targeted the outskirts of the city with drones.

The Israeli military has not commented on the strikes.

At least two were killed and 11 injured in the suspected Israeli missile strike on southern Syria late on Wednesday local time. 

SANA, the official state news agency, citing a military source, said on Thursday that air defenses had shot down several missiles fired by Israel from the southern part of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights at around 11:40 p.m. (4:40 p.m. ET) on Wednesday night local time. The source added that the attack had hit a number of sites in southern Syria, without providing details on the nature of the targets or the exact location.

The attack caused material damage, according to the source.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said three people were killed in the suspected Israeli strikes, which it said hit the service center of a foundation for construction belonging to the Lebanese Hezbollah movement in the Sayyida Zeinab area, considered a stronghold of pro-Iranian militias, south of Damascus.

According to the war monitor, which has a vast network of sources on the ground in Syria, the Jihad al-Bana Foundation, an organization funded by Iran and sanctioned by Washington, sustained severe damage. Those reported killed were an elderly Syrian woman, another Syrian national and a foreign pro-Iranian militia member, according to the SOHR.

The attack left 11 other people injured, the war monitor said, without specifying their identities.

The Israeli military, which rarely acknowledges such missions in Syria, has not commented on the latest attack.

Israel has repeatedly conducted strikes against suspected Iranian-linked targets inside Syria since the civil war erupted in 2011. After the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza last October, such operations increased in frequency in response to stepped up attacks by Iranian proxies in the region against Israel in support of the Palestinian group.

The SOHR has documented 48 air and ground attacks on Syrian territory attributed to Israel since the beginning of this year. One hundred seventy four people have been killed by them, including pro-Iranian fighters.

Israel has repeatedly warned against Iran’s presence in Syria, and the two countries have for decades engaged in a shadow war. The tensions between them threatened to snowball into open conflict in April after Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, firing hundreds of drones in retaliation for a suspected Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus that killed at least seven people, including two IRGC commanders.