Israeli strike closes Syria’s main north-south highway

Syrian state media on Monday reported an Israeli strike on a village near the city of Homs, a day after a deadly strike on a building in the Damascus area.

"An Israeli aggression" targeted the "surroundings of the Shinshar region south of Homs", state news agency SANA said, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike targeted a Hezbollah munitions warehouse.

The strike attacked an aid convoy and forced the closure of Syria’s main north-south highway, Syria state media reported.

There was no immediate word on casualties from Monday’s strike, and state TV did not provide details about the convoy.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria in recent years. Israeli officials rarely acknowledge them, but say Israel is determined to disrupt arms shipments to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and to prevent Iran from developing military infrastructure near its borders.

Monday’s airstrike occurred in Shamsin, around 20 kilometers from the border with Lebanon. People often gather there after fleeing the war, state TV said.

It said the strike forced the closure of the M5 highway that links the capital, Damascus, with the northern city of Aleppo.

On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in the Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab. The Syrian Defense Ministry said seven civilians were killed. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor linked to the Syrian opposition, suggested that Hezbollah was targeted.