Alleged Israeli airstrikes targeted sites near Homs in central Syria on Saturday night, the third such strikes to target Syria in a week.
Initial reports indicated that the Dabaa airbase near al-Qusayr was targeted by the strike.
A Syrian military source told the Syrian state news agency SANA that the strikes were carried out from over Lebanon and five Syrian soldiers were injured in the strikes.
On Thursday night, an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) adviser to Syria was killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike in Damascus.
The adviser was identified as Milad Heydari. "The fake and criminal Zionist regime will undoubtedly receive a response to this crime," warned the IRGC.
That airstrike was the second to hit the Damascus area in 24 hours. On Wednesday night, alleged Israeli airstrikes targeted the Damascus area as well, with Syrian state media reporting two Syrian soldiers were injured in the strikes.
The opposition Capital Voice news site reported that the strikes on Wednesday night targeted an air defense base and a moving target on a highway south of Damascus believed to be the convoy of a "foreign figure" on its way to the Kafr Souseh neighborhood. Iranian and Hezbollah forces are known to operate in that neighborhood.
After the strikes, fires were reported in the al-Midan and Kafr Souseh neighborhoods. It is unclear if the fires were caused directly by the strikes or by shrapnel from Syrian air defense missiles, as Syrian air defense missiles occasionally fall short.
Earlier in March, alleged Israeli airstrikes targeted an airport in Aleppo,damaging buildings at the site. A little over a week before that strike, alleged Israeli airstrikes targeted a structure in Masyaf.
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) carried out airstrikes near the city of Homs late Saturday, injuring five soldiers, according to Syria’s state-run media outlet. The alleged operation came a day after airstrikes attributed to Israel were carried out in the Syrian capital Damascus shortly after midnight on Friday, for the second night in a row.
Footage circulating on social media showed smoke billowing in the sky early Saturday, marking the third consecutive night of alleged strikes in Syria.
The state news agency SANA reported that Syria’s air defenses intercepted some of the missiles, although the “aggression” managed to injure five soldiers and caused “material losses.” Syria regularly claims to successfully intercept IDF strikes, but military analysts doubt these assertions.
A Syrian military source told SANA that “at about 00:35 in the morning, the Israeli enemy carried out an air aggression from the direction north-east of Beirut, targeting some points in the city of Homs and its countryside.”
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said explosions were heard at a few sites including the Syrian military airport at Al-Daba’a near Homs, and a fire broke out at a scientific research facility in another area. The organization said the strikes targeted several Syrian military positions and Iranian-backed militia.
After midnight on Friday, Syrian media said Israeli airstrikes hit in the capital Damascus. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said those strikes targeted an arms depots for government forces and Iran-backed groups just south of Damascus.
On the previous night, SANA said that the IAF targeted sites in Damascus, wounding two soldiers and causing material damage.
The conditions of the two soldiers were not immediately clear. In recent years, numerous Syrian soldiers serving in air defense units have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.
