An Israeli air strike on Wednesday killed a girl and left 10 civilians injured on the coast, as a war monitor reported another raid that claimed the lives of five pro-Hezbollah fighters, Syria's defense ministry said. "The Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of Lebanon, targeting a central site and a residential building in Baniyas city in the coastal region, killing a girl and wounding 10 civilians," Syria's defense ministry said in a statement, as quoted by AFP.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor also reported the girl's death and put the toll of wounded civilians at 20. According to AFP, the Britain-based Observatory also stated that the Israeli strike on central Syria killed three Syrian fighters working with Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group and two other non-Syrian fighters working for the same movement.
On Wednesday, state media said air defences intercepted Israeli "targets" over central Syria. "Syrian air defence intercepts enemy targets in the skies of the city of Homs," the official SANA news agency reported. According to the Observatory, Israeli strikes targeted "at least one military site... in the eastern countryside of Homs, causing plumes of smoke to rise."
The Observatory had said that an Israeli drone strike in central Syria, near the border with Lebanon, on Saturday killed two Hezbollah fighters. Israel, which rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria, repeatedly said it would not allow its arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence there, AFP reported.
Israel has conducted hundreds of strikes in Syria since the outbreak of the civil war in its northern neighbour, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters, including Hezbollah. The strikes have increased since Israel's war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip began on October 7.
Syria's war has claimed the lives of more than half a million people and displaced millions more since it erupted in 2011 after Damascus cracked down on anti-government protests.