Israeli strikes on Syria kill at least 16 as death toll rises, foreign ministry says
The death toll from Israeli air strikes on targets in Syria's Hama province and other locations on Sunday has risen to at least 16, according to Syria's foreign ministry, citing local medical sources.
The ministry said in a statement that 16 people were killed in the Israeli strikes and 36 were wounded, six of them in critical condition.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a higher updated death toll of 26 resulting from the Israeli strikes overnight across Syria.
The war monitor said among those killed were “five civilians, four soldiers and intelligence personnel and 13 Syrians working with pro-Iran groups”.
State news agency Sana described the strikes that targeted locations in Hama and Tartous as "the most violent and extensive in years", according to Al Jazeera correspondent Zeina Khodr, who reported that one of the targets was the Scientific Studies and Research Centre in Masyaf, Hama.
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Israel has launched hundreds of attacks on Syria since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, often targeting Syrian army and Iranian positions.
The strikes have intensified since the outbreak of the war on Gaza and seemed to have reached a peak in April, when an Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus killed 16 people, including a top Iranian military officer.
Israel rarely claims responsibility for strikes on Syria and has yet to comment on the Sunday night attack.
The Israeli military did claim responsibility for a strike in Syria in August, where it said it killed members of Islamic Jihad, a Hamas ally, near Syria’s border with Lebanon.
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