A rocket was launched at Israel from the Sinai region of Egypt, the Israeli military said early Tuesday morning.
There were no reports of injuries or damage, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
Rocket sirens blared in the Eshkol region near the borders with the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula before 2 a.m. Tuesday morning. They went off again an hour later. There were no immediate details on the second launch.
It was not immediately clear if the first missile landed in Israeli territory, the army said.
Terrorists in Sinai affiliated with the Islamic State occasionally attack Israel, though they have mostly focused on battling Egyptian forces as part of an Islamist insurgency.
Cairo has redoubled a yearslong effort to crack down on the so-called Sinai Province of the Islamic State since a grisly attack on a mosque last month that left over 300 people dead. Israel has reportedly offered limited help in battling the insurgency.
Tensions have also been on the rise with the Gaza Strip.
On Thursday, the Islamic Jihad launched a dozen mortar shells at an army post northeast of the Strip, causing no injuries but some damage to army equipment.
The military retaliated with six strikes on terrorist positions in Gaza, four of them belonging to the Islamic Jihad and two to Hamas, which rules the coastal enclave.
Israel’s military struck a Syrian military installation on the outskirts of Damascus late Monday night, according to initial reports.
According to the reports out of Syria, the strike targeted the Jamarya military facility and research center, northwest of the Syrian capital.
“Israeli planes targeted the Jamarya region near Damascus including a scientific research center and warehouses where weapons and ammunition of the regime and its allies were stocked,” Rami Abdel Rahmane, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group told AFP.
An AFP correspondent in the capital also heard loud explosions.
Syrian state TV reported that its air defenses intercepted three missiles shot by Israel. The Syrian regime often makes such claims.
“Our air defenses blocked an Israeli missile attack on one of our positions in Damascus province and downed three of the targets,” Syrian state media said.
Video posted online from near Damascus showed flashes followed by large bangs, apparently showing either the strikes. An air defense missile can also be seen being shot.
The report comes three days after Israeli jets reportedly hit an Iranian military base being constructed in Syria, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Israel’s northern border.
Satellite images published earlier on Monday showed the destruction at that site, the al-Qiswah base south of Damascus.
Israel has reportedly launched air strikes at a Syrian military research facility in the Damascus countryside, local media report, claiming that the country’s air defense systems engaged and destroyed three out of at least six incoming missiles.
At 11:30pm Monday, Syrian “air defenses confronted an Israeli missile attack on one of our sites in the Damascus suburbs and three of the targets were downed,” SANA reported, citing a military source which blamed Tel Aviv for launching repeated attacks against Syrian government’s military installations in order to “lift the morale of the collapsed terrorists.”
While details of the alleged strike remain scarce, a government source told Sputnik that “Syria's air defense destroyed three of the six missiles that Israel launched at the Research Center in the suburbs of Damascus.”
Witnesses have meanwhile told Reuters that three strong explosions were heard near the village of Jamraya, some 5 kilometers (3 miles) northwest of Damascus. Smoke was also allegedly visible rising above the area. The strikes in Jamraya, allegedly by Israeli warplanes, were also confirmed by Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen News, which also noted that the Syrians managed to destroy three out of six missiles.
Jamraya is believed to be the home to a top-secret scientific, military technology research center that was established in the 1980s. The village which lies close to the Lebanese border is also home to the Presidential Guard’s 105th and 4th brigades. It is unclear what the Israeli missiles intended to hit, but the village was targeted twice by the Israelis in 2013. Those strikes allegedly targeted a convoy carrying anti-aircraft weaponry destined for Hezbollah, Israel’s arch-enemy. The Syrian military denied that any such shipments were taking place.
The attack on Monday comes days after the Israeli Defense Forces reportedly launched several missiles at an ammunition depot of the Syrian Army, located between the towns of Kiswah (Kesweh) and Sahnaya. On Monday, SANA said that its surface-to-surface missiles destroyed two of the rockets launched by Israel on December 1.
Satellite photos published Monday showed the aftermath of an alleged Israeli airstrike on a reported Iranian military base being constructed in Syria, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Israel’s northern border, indicating several building had been destroyed.
The images, provided by the Israeli satellite company, ImageSat International, show the destruction of seven buildings on the base at al-Qiswah, some 13 kilometers (8 miles) south of the Syrian capital of Damascus. Another three buildings were damaged. Most of the structures appear to be barracks and garages.
Syrian state media said the country’s air defenses intercepted at least two Israeli missiles fired at a government “military position” in Damascus province, but that the attack still caused damage.
A Sky News Arabic report said that the missiles were fired from within Lebanese airspace.
Some Arab media reports said 12 Iranian military personnel were killed in the strike.
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