Fighters killed in the largest Israeli attack on Syria rise to 57
The number of soldiers and militiamen allied with Bachar al-Assad's government who died in an Israeli air strike on the eastern province of Deir al Zur rose to 57, after several perished from their wounds and new deaths were reported, according to the Syrian Human Rights Observatory.
The UK-based NGO, with a wide network of partners on the ground, reported in a statement that 26 of the casualties were inflicted in the town of Deir al Zur, while 15 and 16 pro-Iranian militiamen were killed in the towns of Al Bukamal and Al Mayadin, in the same region, respectively.
The bulk of the victims were concentrated in the city that gives its name to the province, where most of the deaths occurred in the ranks of the Syrian army and militias loyal to Iran, though the Observatory was unable to specify whether they included members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard or the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, which fight in Syria on the government side.
The bombings this morning were aimed at weapons warehouses belonging to the Syrian army, Hezbollah and the Iranian forces and their militias "in the area extending from the city of Deir al Zur to the Syrian-Iraqi border in the Al Bukamal desert," the NGO said.
The air action, the fourth in less than three weeks and the second so far this year, is the deadliest of those perpetrated by Israel to date on Syrian territory, the organisation confirmed in its note and a Syrian military source to EFE.
According to the latest assessment provided to EFE by this military source, the number of deaths recorded by the authorities is 22 Iranian combatants and 16 wounded, including seven Syrian army soldiers.
Israel often bombards targets of forces loyal to the Syrian president and Lebanese or Iranian Shiite militias allied with him, sometimes causing casualties among their ranks, though on few occasions has it officially confirmed these operations.
Israel's latest action took place last Thursday, when three people were killed and another eleven wounded in a missile attack on positions of the Syrian forces and their allied militias in the south of the Arab country.
The Israeli authorities consider that Iran's presence in Syria and Hezbollah represents a threat to its security.
Likewise, Israeli tanks have bombed several targets of the Hamas Islamist movement in Gaza on two separate occasions in response to two rounds of gunfire from the strip that damaged military bulldozers.
Initially, an engineering vehicle operating in Israeli territory "suffered minor damage" from bullet impacts and no injuries were recorded, the Israeli army reported in a statement.
After this attack and a first Israeli retaliatory bombardment, another military machine working near the separation fence with Gaza received a further burst of fire from the enclave, with no injuries.
The troops responded with a further artillery bombardment of two other Hamas military posts in the vicinity.
No Palestinian armed militia has claimed responsibility for the attacks for the time being, nor has any information been released on the identity of the perpetrators. Nor were any injuries recorded among Palestinian militiamen, according to security sources in the enclave.
Israel usually responds to targets of Hamas, which controls the coastal enclave de facto and is held responsible for incidents from the strip, mostly rocket fire and, rarely, firing on the dividing line as occurred today.
Last year the Palestinian militias launched 176 rockets into Israel, of which around half landed in unpopulated areas and 80 were intercepted, according to army data.
The army attacked 300 Hamas military targets in the strip, most of them in repression. In addition, 38 Palestinian attempts to infiltrate Israel were recorded.
