Israel said its warplanes carried out a “very intense” attack against Iranian forces and Syrian army targets in Syria Wednesday, in raids a monitoring group reported killed at least 23 people.
In a rare confirmation of their operations in Syria, the Israeli army said they had carried out dozens of strikes against the Iranian elite Quds Force and the Syrian military, in response to four rockets fired at Israel a day before.
Britain-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said 23 people were killed in the strikes — 21 fighters and two civilians.
Sixteen were non-Syrian fighters, the group’s head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Iran has fought alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in the country’s eight-year civil war, heightening Israeli concern over the presence of its arch foe along its border.
The Israeli army said they had targeted about a dozen military sites, including warehouses and military command centres.
The most important target, he said, was a control facility at the main international airport in Damascus.
