An Israeli air strike in central Syria killed one Syrian soldier and three pro-Iranian fighters on Wednesday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Syrian state news agency (Sana) had earlier quoted a military source as saying that the attack near the city of Palmyra in Homs province had killed a soldier and wounded three others. “At around 23:34pm the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression … on the area of Palmyra targeting a communication tower and several positions in its vicinity,” the source told Sana. The observatory said the attack targeted several Iranian positions, among them the communication tower, near the T4 airbase east of Palmyra. It reported that the attack killed one Syrian soldier and three pro-Iranian fighters, but their nationality was not immediately clear. The Syrian Defence Ministry confirmed that the attack was in Palmyra, in the province of Homs. The ministry said on its Facebook page that the attack caused some material losses. Seven others, among them three Syrian soldiers, were wounded. Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes against Syria during the civil war, against what it says are arms shipments bound for Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, which is fighting alongside Syrian government forces. Last week, Israel launched an overnight attack on Syria that injured six soldiers, Sana reported. Israel rarely comments on individual attacks.
