Two civilians were killed on Monday night in the latest round of Israeli air strikes in Syria, state media reported.
The strikes near Damascus that caused “some material damage” are at least the fourth since Thursday in what has quickly become an almost nightly occurrence.
The strikes came from the direction of “the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting some points in the vicinity of Damascus and the southern region”, state news agency Sana said.
It said Israel launched the strikes at around 12.15am. Air defence intercepted “most of” the missiles, it added.
The Israeli military declined to comment.
The agency had earlier reported “an explosion heard in the vicinity of Damascus”.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor gave the same civilian death toll. Its director Rami Abdel Rahman said that “an unknown number of Iran-backed fighters were also killed” in the strike.
Israel fired “barrages of missiles targeting military areas controlled by Iran-backed groups and regime air defence,” said the Britain-based monitor.
An Israeli missile targeted a radar in the countryside of Sweida, while another hit a glass factory in the Al Kiswah area of the Damascus countryside, killing the two civilians, it said.
The monitor had earlier said the missiles also targeted the vicinity of Damascus International Airport and an Iranian complex near the Sayyida Zeinab area, with Syria's air defence intercepting at least two missiles.
Israel has for years been carrying out attacks against what it has described as Iran-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran's influence has grown since it began supporting President Bashar Al Assad in the civil war that started in 2011.
However, over the last week the attacks have intensified.
Two Iran-linked fighters were killed and five wounded on Sunday near the city of Hama while two members of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed in strikes on Friday and two Syrian soldiers were wounded on Thursday.
Bente Scheller, head of the Middle East Division of Heinrich Boell Foundation, a German think tank, told The National last week that the attacks were part of a “broader escalation” by Israel.
He said that they come at a time when the government is facing increased pressure from the right-wing members of its coalition amid a political crisis in Israel.
While Israel rarely comments on the strikes it carries out on Syria, it has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to extend its footprint in the war-torn country.
The Syrian war broke out in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful anti-government protests, and escalated into a deadly armed conflict that pulled in foreign powers and global jihadists.
More than half a million people have been killed and around half of Syria's prewar population has been forced from their homes.
