Israel bombs central Syria from Lebanon's airspace

Israeli warplanes on Saturday carried out an air raid on targets in central Syria from Lebanon’s airspace, Syrian state media said.

Syria’s air defenses managed to shoot down some of the fired missiles, Syrian news agency SANA reported.

Lebanese media meanwhile reported that the Israeli jets overflew the city of Jbeil at a very low altitude during the strike.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that explosions were heard in the town of Masyaf and nearby areas in the west of government-controlled Hama province.

The Britain-based war monitor said that both Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Lebanon's Hizbullah had a presence in the area.

It said the strikes were the eighth by Israel in Syria this year and targeted weapons depots and research centers for the development of missiles and drones.

In early March, Israeli strikes near Damascus killed two officers from Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the Islamic republic's ideological army.

The Guards vowed to avenge the killings and subsequently launched strikes on what they described as an Israeli "strategic center" in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region.

Since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes inside the country, targeting government positions as well as allied Iran-backed forces and fighters of Lebanon's Hizbullah.

While Israel rarely comments on individual strikes, it has acknowledged mounting hundreds since 2011.