The Syrian army’s air defense units have intercepted and shot down a number of Israeli missiles near the country’s western coastal city of Latakia, amid an upsurge in the Tel Aviv regime’s acts of aggression against the Arab country.
“At around 2:18 a.m. (2318 GMT Tuesday), the Israeli enemy perpetrated an air aggression and hit several areas along the southwest coast of Latakia. Our aerial defenses intercepted the aggressor’s missiles and downed some of them,” the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) quoted an unnamed military source as saying on Wednesday morning.
The source added that one civilian was killed in the strike while six others, including a child and his mother, sustained injuries.
Footage from the attack showed a large fire and several loud explosions at the scene.
SANA said the Israeli airstrike hit a civilian plastics factory in Latakia.
The Israeli air assault was the first on Syria since Tel Aviv claimed last month that a “Syrian missile” had landed near the top-secret Dimona nuclear site in the southern part of the Israeli-occupied territories.
The regime admitted that its so-called Iron Dome missile system had failed to intercept the missile.
The Israeli military said back then that in response to the alleged launch, it attacked several missile batteries in neighboring Syria, most of which were intercepted and downed by the air defenses of the Arab country.
Israel frequently targets military positions inside Syria, especially those of the resistance movement Hezbollah, which has played a key role in helping the Syrian army in its fight against foreign-backed terrorists since 2011.
The Tel Aviv regime mostly keeps quiet about the attacks on Syrian territories, which many view as knee-jerk reaction to the Syrian government’s increasing success in confronting terrorism in its territories.
Damascus has repeatedly urged the United Nations to condemn and take action against Israeli violations of Syrian sovereignty.
On April 22, Syria called on the UN Security Council to take “firm and immediate” action to end Israeli acts of aggression after a barrage of Israeli missiles were launched from the direction of the occupied Golan Height on some targets near Damascus.
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said at the time in a statement that the attack was a flagrant violation of the UN Charter and Syria’s sovereignty.
The attacks, the statement said, fall within the framework of Tel Aviv’s violations and are in flagrant violation of Security Council Resolution 350 (1974) and the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Israel and Syria.