Reports: Two pro-Hezbollah fighters killed in Israeli strike in Syria

Syria’s Defense Ministry claimed on Wednesday night that Israel carried out strikes near Damascus.

"The Israeli enemy launched air strikes from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting a number of sites in the Damascus countryside," the ministry said in a statement quoted by the AFP news agency.

"Our air defenses responded to the aggression's missiles and shot down most of them," it added.

The Lebanese-based Al Maydeen TV said a big explosion was heard in the heavily fortified Sayeda Zainab neighborhood of the Syrian capital.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organization affiliated with the Syrian opposition, said the strikes attributed to Israel killed two Syrian pro-Hezbollah fighters and injured at least six.

The strikes reportedly targeted "sites where Iran-backed groups including Lebanon's Hezbollah are based" in two locations near Damascus.

The IDF has not commented on the reports.

Last Wednesday, explosions were heard in Damascus, as well as in several locations in Israel, in what local media claimed was an Israeli attack.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Al-Arabiya that senior Hezbollah terrorists, as well as senior IRGC officials, often frequent the building which was struck. The reports said that two people were killed in the strike.

In early February, Syrian media reported explosions in the Homs area, in western Syria, as a result of an air strike which was blamed on Israel.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition organization based in Britain, reported that four people were killed in the strike.