2 killed in Israeli strike on Hezbollah vehicle in Syria

A war monitor said two people were killed Tuesday in an Israeli strike on a vehicle belonging to Lebanon's Hezbollah group in the Damascus countryside near the Lebanese border.

Hezbollah has traded almost daily cross-border fire from Lebanon with the Israeli army since October in support of Palestinian ally Hamas, with Israel targeting operatives from the group in both Lebanon and neighboring Syria.

"At least two people were killed and one was wounded in an Israeli drone strike on a Hezbollah car" on the Syrian side of the border with Lebanon, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The car was targeted near a Syrian army checkpoint, the monitor said.

Since the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters, including from Lebanon's Hezbollah.

The strikes intensified after Palestinian militant group Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip, before easing after an April 1 strike blamed on Israel hit the Iranian consular building in Damascus, sending regional tensions soaring.

Israeli strikes have killed at least 24 Hezbollah fighters in Syria since the Gaza war erupted, according to an AFP tally.

Last month, an Israeli strike targeted a convoy of tankers entering Lebanon from Syria, the Observatory had said, with Hezbollah announcing three dead and a source close to the group saying they were killed in east Lebanon's Hermel area.

Earlier Tuesday, the Syrian defense ministry said an Israeli strike caused damage but no casualties near the coastal city of Baniyas, with the Observatory saying Iranian military advisers were based in the area.

Israeli authorities rarely comment on individual strikes, but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.

Syria's war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more since it erupted in 2011 after Damascus cracked down on anti-government protests.

Hezbollah also fights in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad's government.