Syria intercepts Israeli 'targets': state media

Syrian state media said the country's air defences intercepted Israeli targets over the centre of the country on Wednesday, and a war monitor saying Israel had attacked a military site.

"Syrian air defence intercepts enemy targets in the skies of the city of Homs," the official SANA news agency reported.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the Israeli strikes targeted "at least one military site... in the eastern countryside of Homs, causing plumes of smoke to rise".

The Britain-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria said the area also housed members of Iran-backed groups including Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah.

On Saturday, an Israeli drone strike in central Syria, near the border with Lebanon, killed two Hezbollah fighters, the Observatory had said.

Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria but has repeatedly said it will not allow its arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence there.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since the outbreak of the civil war in its northern neighbour, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters including from Hezbollah.

The strikes have increased since Israel's war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip began on October 7, when the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group launched an unprecedented attack against Israel.

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.