The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 20 strikes hit military targets across Syria late Friday, in the “heaviest” assault carried out by Israel on its neighbour this year.
Syria’s state news agency SANA reported strikes near Damascus and in the country’s centre, west and south, saying one civilian was killed.
An Israeli military statement said its forces “struck a military site, anti-aircraft cannons and surface-to-air missile infrastructure in Syria”. It did not give further details.
Firas Aabdeen, 32, a member of the security forces in Harasta near Damascus, where one of the attacks hit, said he heard several “very loud” strikes and that a largely disused Assad-era military barracks was targeted.
The barrage followed an Israeli attack near the presidential palace in Damascus early on Friday, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz called a “clear message” to Syria’s new rulers.
“We will not allow forces to be sent south of Damascus or any threat to the Druze community,” they said.
Israeli foe Iran, which propped up the now ousted Assad government, condemned the strikes, accusing Israel of seeking to “destroy and annihilate the defence, economic and infrastructure capabilities of Syria as an independent country”.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group, also an Assad ally, said that the attacks were “a clear attempt to undermine” and weaken Syria.