Israeli airstrikes on Syria kill dozens, hit weapons depot

Israeli airstrikes in Syria killed dozens of people including members of the Hezbollah militant group, one of the deadliest attacks on the war-torn country since Oct. 7.

Syria’s state-run news agency said Israel launched rockets overnight southeast of Aleppo, killing and wounding a number of people. At least 42 died, including six Hezbollah fighters, according to the U.K.-based Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks developments on the ground in Syria.

The Friday strikes also hit a missile depot near Aleppo airport and a defense compound, said the group, which estimates the attack as Israel’s biggest in Syria in three years.

Israel rarely comments on such incidents in Syria but officials have repeatedly said they would seek to obstruct the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah and other Iran-allied militias via Syria.

Israel has for years routinely struck targets in Syria, mainly to thwart Hezbollah or secure its own north-eastern border. Those strikes have increased since Israel’s war with Hamas, another Iran-backed group, erupted in October in Gaza.

Since then, hundreds of Iran-backed militiamen have moved from the Iraq-Syria border to be nearer Israel.

Iran Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani condemned the latest Israeli attacks, calling them a “blatant and desperate attempt to prolong and expand the crisis in the region,” according to a statement on Telegram.

Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Israel, who fought a 33-day war in 2006, have engaged in almost daily cross-border fire since the Oct. 7 invasion of Israel by Hamas. The skirmishes have been mostly confined to army targets and the militia’s fighters and warehouses.

Tensions escalated this week after Hezbollah fired a barrage of missiles at a northern Israeli town. The group, which is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., said the attack was in retaliation to Israeli strikes that killed civilians.

Hamas killed about 1,200 people and abducted 250 others during its incursion into southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities. A fierce retaliatory land and air campaign has since left more than 32,000 Palestinians dead, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.

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(With assistance from Patrick Sykes.)