The Syrian military has claimed that Israeli fighter jets fired missiles on the Syrian port of Latakia, which resulted in damage to the containers but no casualties were reported.
The SANA news agency quoted a military source sharing that the attack occurred at 1:23 am local time on Tuesday (23:23 GMT Monday).
The official shared that several missiles struck the container area in the port, setting some of them on fire.
He said, “Our air defences repelled the Israeli aggression in Latakia”.
It was a rare attack on the port of Latakia, an important facility where much of Syria’s imports are brought into the battle-weary country.
Syrian state TV reported that five explosions were heard at the port and a huge fire erupted in the container area and fire engines have rushed to the port.
According to reports, the blazes have been extinguished.
Israel has already staged hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled Syria during the last few years, but it has rarely acknowledged or discussed such operations.
The main airport in the capital Damascus has been a target of multiple strikes in the past.
However, Israel has acknowledged that it targets the bases of Iran-allied militias, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, which has fighters deployed in Syria. It claims that it attacks arms shipments believed to be bound for the militias.
Hezbollah is fighting on the side of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces in the decade-old civil war.
Israel justifies its strikes on facilities and weapons inside Syria by saying that the Iranian presence on its northern frontier is a red line.
On November 24, five people were killed during the Israeli missile attacks in the west of Homs province as reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
In two separate Israeli attacks in October, five pro-Iranian militiamen were killed near the Syrian capital Damascus, while nine pro-government fighters were killed near the T4 airbase east of Palmyra in central Syria, the UK-based rights group said.
