Israel strikes western Syria, civilian reported killed

Israel on Friday struck western Syria, the Israeli military and Syrian state media said, with one civilian reportedly killed in the first such attack on the country in nearly a month.

It came after Damascus announced earlier this month indirect talks with Israel to calm tensions, and the United States called for a “non-aggression agreement” between the two countries, which are technically at war.

“A strike from Israeli occupation aircraft targeted sites close to the village of Zama in the Jableh countryside south of Latakia,” state television said.

State news agency SANA reported one civilian was killed “as a result of an Israeli occupation airstrike targeting the vicinity of Zama.”

The Israeli military said it had “struck weapon storage facilities containing coastal missiles that posed a threat to international and Israeli maritime freedom of navigation, in the Latakia area of Syria.”

“In addition, components of surface-to-air missiles were struck,” it said, adding it would “continue to operate to maintain freedom of action in the region, in order to carry out its missions and will act to remove any threat to the State of Israel and its citizens.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights meanwhile reported that jets likely to be Israeli struck military sites on the outskirts of Tartus and Latakia.

Syria and Israel have technically been at war since 1948. Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and has carried out hundreds of strikes and several incursions since the overthrow of longtime Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in December.

Israel says its strikes aim to stop advanced weapons reaching Syria’s new authorities, whom it considers extremists.