Sept. 9 (UPI) — Israeli airstrikes on Iran-backed groups in and around the west-central Syrian city of Masyaf in Hama Governorate overnight killed at least 14 people and injured 43, including many civilians, state-owned media reported.
Israeli aircraft flying over northwestern Lebanon launched missiles at “a number of military sites in the central region” at around 11:20 p.m. local time Sunday some of which were shot down by Syrian Arab Armed Forces air defenses, the Syrian Arab News Agency said.
Masyaf National Hospital Director Dr. Fayssal Haidar said in a statement that six of those injured were in a critical condition.
The attack also damaged Masyaf-Wadi al-Uyun highway and sparked wildfires in the Hair Abbas area.
The Israeli military did not immediately confirm the strikes and told CNN it does not comment “on reports in the foreign media.”
The Britain-based Syrian Human Rights Observatory reported that at least four civilians and eight Syrian combatants were among those killed in the attacks which destroyed military and scientific facilities where Iran-backed militias were stationed.
At least 13 explosions were heard in the area of the scientific research stations in Misyaf while two Israeli missiles were fired on two positions in the Al-Zawy area in the countryside, causing fires, with missiles also fired at a position in Wady Al-Eyon.
However, SOHR said it was unable to confirm whether the military personnel killed were from the forces of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime or members of Iranian-backed militias.
A surge in strikes on northern Israel by Hezbollah and other groups in Lebanon and Syria has seen a sharp escalation in Israeli retaliatory strikes against what it alleges are Iranian-backed or operated targets in Syria in the 11 months since the start of the war in Gaza with SOHR saying Sunday’s attack was the 64th so far this year.
The tally was comprised of 47 airstrikes and 17 rocket attacks by ground forces, against 138 targets including buildings, weapons and ammunition warehouses, military headquarters, centers and vehicles, that had killed 110 combatants and injured 110, according to the observatory.
In March, Israeli warplanes struck a Hezbollah weapons warehouse near the Aleppo International Airport and air-defense batteries in Al-Saferah, 13 miles to the southeast, killing at least 36 Assad government troops.
Three days later, on April 1, Israel carried out a missile strike on an Iranian Embassy annex in Damascus killing Mohammed Reza Zahedi, the top military commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon.
Israel has yet to claim responsibility for either attack.
The United States has also carried out attacks against Iran-backed assets in Syria.
In February, U.S. airstrikes targeting Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria and Iraq killed 23 people in Al-Mayadeen and Deir Ezzor in Syria.
The attack was in retaliation for a drone strike the previous month on a base in Jordan that killed three American soldiers and wounded more than 40 others which U.S. officials blamed on Iran-backed groups.