Syrian soldier killed in Israeli missile strike: State media

A Syrian soldier was killed on Thursday in an Israeli missile raid from the occupied Golan Heights into southern Syria, state media reported.

"At around 12.50am, the Israeli enemy carried out an air raid with several missiles in the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan and targeting several positions in the south," according to a military source quoted by Sana.

The Syrian air defences managed to "shoot down most of the missiles," the source added, which specified that the attack led to "the martyrdom of a soldier and some material losses".

In 2019, then US President Donald Trump broke with other world powers by recognising Israel as sovereign on the Golan Heights, which it illegally annexed in 1981.

Earlier this month, Israel was suspected of strikes on an Iranian arms shipment at the port of Latakia, located in President Bashar al-Assad's western Syrian heartland, without causing any casualties.

In late November, three soldiers and two Syrian fighters affiliated with Lebanon's Hezbollah were killed in Israeli strikes, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group with a wide network of sources in Syria.

Since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syrian territory, targeting government positions as well as allied Iran-backed forces and Hezbollah fighters.

An Israeli military spokesperson refused to comment on the strike, AFP reported.

Israel has repeatedly said it will not allow its regional rival Iran to extend its footprint in the country.

The conflict in Syria has killed around half a million people since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful demonstrations.