Syria says two killed in Israeli missile strike on Damascus

Syria's defence ministry said two civilians were killed in an Israeli strike that targeted a vehicle earlier on Monday.

"At approximately 17:05 pm (1405 GMT), the Israeli enemy launched an air strike targeting a civilian car in the residential neighbourhood of Mazzeh in Damascus, killing two civilians and injuring three," the ministry said in a statement.

Syrian state media earlier a car exploded in the Mazzeh district of Damascus which is home to embassies and security headquarters.

The official SANA news agency reported "a car explosion in one of the neighbourhoods" of Mazzeh, where an AFP correspondent said a hotel was damaged and vehicles torched following the blast near Syria's Information Ministry.

Ambulances rushed to the site of the explosion where crowds gathered around the mangled four-wheel drive which was reduced to scraps of metal, the correspondent said.

Rami Abdul Rahman, the head of Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, could not confirm the cause of the blast but said it was likely caused by an air strike.

The Mazzeh neighbourhood, home to United Nations offices, has been the target of recent strikes blamed on Israel.

Earlier this month, the Syrian government said seven civilians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a residential and commercial building in Mazzeh.

The Observatory gave a higher toll of nine killed, five of them civilians including a child.

It said the attack targeted a building used by Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Israeli authorities rarely comment on individual strikes in Syria but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence.

Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah have been among the Syrian government's most important allies in the country's civil war that began in 2011.