5 Syrian soldiers killed in Israeli airstrike on Lebanese-Syrian border

ANKARA

Five Syrian soldiers were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting a military site on the Syrian-Lebanese border at dawn on Friday, according to Syria’s state-run news agency SANA.

The agency quoted a Syrian military source saying that “at approximately 1:35 a.m. Friday, the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial attack from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan (Heights), targeting one of our military sites on the Syrian-Lebanese border near Kfeir Yabous in the Damascus countryside.”

“The attack resulted in the martyrdom of five soldiers and the injury of another,” the unnamed source added.

This marks the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on Syrian military positions, particularly along the border regions.

Israel has not yet commented on the strike.

The attack has further escalated tensions in the region as Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the start of Israel's war on Gaza, which has killed more than 41,500 people, most of them women and children, following a cross-border attack by Hamas last October.

* Writing by Ikram Kouachi