At least 36 Syrian soldiers were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Aleppo province of Syria on Friday, a war monitor reported. The report also mentioned the presence of Hezbollah weapons caches nearby.
According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which maintains a wide network of sources throughout Syria, the Israeli bombardment was directed towards a location “near rockets depots belonging to Lebanese group Hezbollah”.
“At least 36 soldiers were killed and dozens wounded,” it said.
Syrian state news agency SANA said the pre-dawn strike killed and wounded civilians as well as military personnel.
“At roughly 1:45 am, the Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of Athriya, southeast of Aleppo,” a Syrian military source told SANA, adding that “civilians and military personnel” had been killed and injured in the strike.
The Israeli military told AFP that it would “not comment on reports in the foreign media” when contacted from Jerusalem.
Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes on targets in Syria, primarily targeting Iranian-backed forces, such as Hamas from Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, and Syrian army sites.
The strikes have increased since Israel’s war with Palestinian group Hamas, a Hezbollah ally, began on October 7.
