Syrian state TV confirmed Israeli strikes had hit, but said only material damage was done after “several missiles” targeted a transportation center and a public building in the Quneitra area near the Israeli frontier.
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Friday’s air raid followed more than a dozen Israeli strikes on Thursday night which killed one person and wounded seven, a Syrian military source said.
Syrian media reported that on Friday, the second day of Israeli airstrikes, Israeli forces struck a vehicle in a Syrian-controlled area of the Golan Heights, killing five civilians.
“The assassination of the cell that fired at Israel yesterday [Thursday] is an additional proof that we will not tolerate any attempt to disrupt our lives and harm the security of Israeli citizens”, Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said in a statement.
Israel has launched six artillery and air strikes against Syrian army positions in the Golan Heights in response to rocket fire.
Israel warned Syria it would “suffer the consequences” for the rocket attacks, which it says were masterminded by a senior Iranian official.
Israel’s military said its forces had hit 14 Syrian military posts and a vehicle carrying 4-5 members of a what it described as a “terror cell”.
The allegations, which could not be independently verified, come amid an intense Israeli campaign against the recent deal reached between world powers and Iran to curb its nuclear program.
-June 23: Israel carries out retaliatory air raids on Syrian army positions following an attack from Syria. The four were traveling in a vehicle less than 10 miles from the Israeli-Syrian border.
The army said the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad fired the rockets, “under the supervision of Iran”.
No injuries were reported, the army said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that it was his government’s policy to “hurt anybody who tries to hurt us”. The IDF also said it saw Syria as responsible for the fire.
“We hope that the other side understands that it’s not worth escalating the conflict”, said the military official. Rockets have occasionally been fired during fighting in the war-torn country and ended up in Israel in the past.
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Israel seized the territory from Syria during the 1967 Israel-Arab war, and it was eventually annexed.
