Syria-Israel Missile Attacks: One Soldier Killed, Five Injured

Illustration of Israel's MLRS rocket launcher. (Wikimedia Commons/Israeli Defense Forces Spokesperson's Unit)

JAKARTA - Syria and Israel are again involved in firing missiles at each other in a new tension between the two countries, resulting in the death and injury of people.

Syrian air defenses on Wednesday shot down a number of Israeli missiles in the vicinity of the capital Damascus, said State TV, which also reported the country's air defenses were facing "enemy targets", citing Reuters on February 9.

Rocket warning sirens sounded in northern Israel on Wednesday, the Israeli military said. Their warnings sounded at about the same time as reports from Syria

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said it struck a missile battery in Syria on Wednesday, after anti-aircraft missiles were fired at Israel during what Syrian State television reported was an earlier strike around Damascus.

A military spokesman declined to comment on Syrian reports of an initial Israeli strike near the Syrian capital, which reportedly killed one soldier and injured five people.

However, the military said it carried out retaliatory strikes in Syria in response to the launch of an anti-aircraft missile. It said the missile set off sirens in parts of Israel and the occupied West Bank, but exploded in midair.

"Following the launch of an anti-aircraft missile earlier this evening, the Israel Defense Forces attacked a battery of surface-to-air missiles and radars that fired on an Israeli air force aircraft," the military wrote on Twitter.

Israel launched surface-to-surface missiles from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, with Syrian air defenses shooting down several of them, Syrian state TV said.

"Israeli aggression" also carried out air strikes earlier Wednesday with missiles from southeast of the Lebanese capital Beirut, state TV added, which reported a Syrian soldier killed and five wounded, citing a military source.

To note, Israel frequently carries out attacks against what it says are Iranian targets in Syria, where Tehran-backed forces led by Lebanon's Hezbollah have supported President Bashar al-Assad during the last decade of Syria's civil war.