Israel has been accused by the Syrian Defence Ministry of conducting a sequence of airstrikes in the vicinity of Aleppo on Friday morning.
According to media estimates, the strikes, which have not been recognized by West Jerusalem, resulted in the deaths of about 40 individuals, as reported by RT.
“Around 1:45am, the Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of Athriya, southeast of Aleppo, targeting a number of points in Aleppo countryside,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry refrained from offering an exact breakdown of casualties or damages, but alluded to the fact that a significant number of citizens and military personnel sustained fatal injuries.
According to Reuters, the number of fatalities stands at 38, although the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based group associated with anti-government militants in Syria, has documented 43 fatalities.
The SOHR said that the attacks targeted concentrations of Syrian army and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, as well as a munitions stockpile situated near Aleppo International Airport.
Israel has abstained from providing a response to the strike and often maintains a state of silence over its activities in the Syrian airspace. Elsewhere, the Jewish state often claims credit for extraterritorial kills, as was the case later on Friday when an Israeli drone killed Hezbollah deputy missile commander Ali Abed Akhsan Naim in the southern Lebanese district of Bazouriye.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shared a video of the attack on social media, which showed a missile hitting a vehicle apparently transporting Naim.
Hezbollah militants and Israeli forces have routinely engaged in tit-for-tat missile and rocket attacks since Israel started its assault on Gaza in October.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned in November that these strikes are intended at tying up Israeli soldiers near the Lebanese border and generating “a state of anxiety, anticipation, panic, and fear among the enemy’s political and military leadership.” Shia militia organizations in Syria have adopted similar methods, but on a lesser scale.
The number and ferocity of these cross-border assaults have risen in recent days, however, with Israeli airstrikes killing 16 people – including seven paramedics – in southern Lebanon on Wednesday.
The raids were started after Hezbollah fired a volley of missiles into Israel, killing one person.