Syria news agency claims Israeli attack repulsed

Syria’s state-owned news service claims several Israeli missiles shot down in overnight attack.

By World Israel News Staff and AP

Syrian air defenses opened fire and shot down several missiles launched by Israeli warplanes Monday night near the central historic town of Palmyra, the state-run SANA news agency said.

“The air defenses are responding to an Israeli aggression in the sky over Palmyra and a number of enemy missiles have been shot down,” SANA tweeted.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the Israeli strikes targeted Iranian and Iran-backed fighters in the desert near Palmyra. It had no immediate word on casualties adding that Israeli warplanes were flying over neighboring Lebanon.

Iran is a strong backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad and has sent thousands of Iran-backed fighters to fight along his troops in Syria’s nine-year conflict.

The strikes came hours after Iran’s Foreign Minister Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif was in Damascus where he met with Assad and his Syrian counterpart.

Israel has in the past used Lebanon’s airspace to launch attacks on Syria and Israeli drones and warplanes were flying over Lebanon earlier Monday. There was no immediate comment from Israel.

Last month, Israeli warplanes were suspected of firing missiles on the Shayrat air base also in the central province of Homs.

In recent years, Israel has repeatedly carried out airstrikes in Syria against targets belonging to Iran and its regional proxies.

Last week, in an attack attributed to Israel two missiles were fired at an SUV carrying members of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Syria close to the border with Lebanon. No one was hurt in the attack.

Israel on Saturday accused Hezbollah of “provocative” activity along the Lebanese-Israeli frontier and said it would complain to the U.N. Security Council.