At least 53 Syrians were killed in an ISIS attack in the country's central desert, state TV reported on Friday.
The director of a hospital in Palmyra, Walid Audi, said seven soldiers and 46 civilians had been killed.
Mr Audi told pro-government radio station Sham FM that their bodies had “been brought to the hospital after the ambush”.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had also reported the attack earlier on Friday.
Many people, including women and children, have been attacked in recent years while truffle hunting in central, north-eastern and eastern parts of Syria.
Sixteen people, mostly civilians, were killed on Saturday in a similar attack on foragers in the same area, said the observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources on the ground in Syria.
Dozens of others were kidnapped in the attack, the observatory said. It added that 25 of them were released but the fate of the others remains unknown.
And in April 2021, the extremist group launched a similar attack, abducting 19 people, mostly civilians, in the eastern countryside of Hama province.
