Israel air strike on Syria kills seven people

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said that the strike targeted an arms depot, used by Iranian forces.

This attack is the first to register after US President Donald Trump's announcement on Monday, in which he recognised the Golan Heights, a territory illegally seized from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967.

Unnamed military source told Syria's official SANA news agency that Syrian air forces repelled "an Israeli air aggression that targeted a number of industrial sites in Sheikh Najjar industrial zone, northeast of Aleppo, and downed a number of the hostile missiles".

The UK-based monitoring organisation stated that the Israeli bombardment hit "ammunition stores belonging to Iranian forces and allied groups, and caused huge explosions".

However, according to SANA, the strike caused only material damage.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, confirmed that seven people were killed.

The monitoring organisation said the victims were guards protecting the warehouses, which were targeted by Israel.

The warehouses were used as ammunition depots by Iranian forces and allied militia, according to the Observatory. The identity and nationality of the victims is yet to be confirmed.

According to media reports, a number of residents of Aleppo said that the attack caused a power outage in the whole city, but was subsequently restored after one hour.

Over the past few years, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes in Syria targeting positions held by rival Iran and Hezbollah, killing 21 people, mostly Iranians, based on the Observatory’s body count.

In May 2018 alone, Israelis strikes targeted Iranian positions inside Syria, killing 27 pro-regime fighters, including 11 Iranians.

Most recently, in January, Israel hit a number of Iranian positions in the country, hours after intercepting a rocket fired from Syrian territory.

Since the civil war that broke in Syria in 2011, Iran has shown unshakable support to President Bashar al-Assad. Israel carries out occasional attacks on Syrian soil with the goal of stopping the arch foe Iran from entrenching itself militarily in the war-torn country.