State Media: Israeli Air Strike on Southern Syria Kills Soldier

A Syrian soldier was killed in an Israeli missile attack on southern Syria early Thursday morning, state media has reported. Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported that Syrian air defenses intercepted a wave of missiles shot from over the Syrian Golan “and downed most of them.” The Israel Defense Forces, as is its policy, has neither confirmed nor denied the attack.

The SANA report said that the attack also caused material damage, though it did not say what was struck. Syrian state media frequently reports that it successfully repels such air strikes, though experts frequently say that this is not the case.

Israel reportedly has fired hundreds of rockets on Syria in recent years, while only acknowledging a few of the air strikes; most of the attacks are on Iran-backed militias and weapons shipments to them, as Israel attempts to prevent them from gaining a foothold in its neighbor to the north.