Two Syrian soldiers were killed yesterday afternoon in an Israeli airstrike against their positions in the western part of the country, the official Syrian news agency SANA reported, while a non-governmental organization reported a third death in a strike against a warehouse of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.

“At 17:22 (local and Greek time), the Israeli enemy launched strikes (…) from the Mediterranean, targeting some of our air defense facilities in Tartous,” SANA’s source in the Syrian army said.

“The attack resulted in the death of two soldiers and the wounding of six others,” according to the same source.

For its part, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes also targeted Hezbollah weapons depots near Al-Jamasa in Tartus province.

Jamassa is south of Tartous, a stronghold of Syrian government forces and home to a naval base used by Moscow — the Russian military is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The British-based NGO, which relies on a wide network of sources in the field, confirmed the deaths of the two soldiers and added that a fighter, whose nationality is unknown, also died.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes also targeted an air defense base in the village of Karto, about 10 kilometers from Jamasa, where five soldiers were wounded.

Explosions near Hama

Since the outbreak of war in Syria in 2011, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on Syrian territory, the vast majority of them from the air, against positions of the Syrian armed forces and their allies, Iranian military and pro-Iranian armed groups, above all its Shiite movement Hezbollah of Lebanon.

Asked by AFP, a spokesman for the Israeli army gave the standard answer “we do not comment on information from foreign media”.

Later yesterday, the Israeli Air Force struck Syria again, this time targeting a “scientific research center” in a mountainous area in the village of Taxis in Hama province, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which did not report any casualties. .

In these mountains there are weapons depots, while the center has the purpose of “weapons development”, always according to the NGO.

“At around 10:40 p.m., the Israeli enemy launched an airstrike from northern Lebanon targeting some positions near Hama,” causing material damage, a Syrian army source told state television.

Israel rarely officially confirms operations in the neighboring country as part of this undeclared war, but it often declares that it will not allow Iran, its sworn enemy, to build a bridgehead or extend its influence on its doorstep.

On August 22, two fighters close to the Syrian regime were killed in Israeli airstrikes against positions of Tehran-backed paramilitary groups near Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

And on August 7, Israeli strikes against military positions and weapons and ammunition depots in the Damascus suburbs killed four Syrian soldiers and two pro-Iranian fighters, according to the same source.

The highly complex war in Syria, sparked by a bloody crackdown on protests demanding the country’s democratization, has claimed the lives of more than half a million people, turned millions more into internally displaced persons and refugees, and caused an economic and humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions.