Israel air raid kills one in Syria coastal region: Report

Israeliairstrikes carried out overnightontargets inSyria's northwestern region ofLatakiakilledone civilian and wounded several other people, state media and a war monitor reported Wednesday.

TheIsraeliauthorities do not generally commentonsuch reports but they have previously confirmed carrying out dozens of raids inSyria, mostly against Iranian assets.

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"TheIsraeliattackleft one civilian dead and six wounded, including a boy and his mother," a military source quoted by the official SANA news agency said.

State media said a plastics factory was among the sites hit in the raids, which struck the towns of Hifa inLatakiaand Masyaf in the neighbouring province of Hama.

Syrian air defences were activated to counter theIsraelimissiles, with "some shot down", the report added, without mentioning any military casualties.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 14 fighters were wounded in strikes it said targeted government and allied pro-Tehran forces at several locations.

The Britain-based war monitor, which reliesonan extensive network of sourcesonthe ground, said arms depots were also targeted in the mountainsonthe border betweenLatakiaand Hama provinces.

Latakiaonthe Mediterranean coast, a bastion of President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite minority, has seen relatively fewIsraelistrikes compared with other provinces.

In September 2018, Syrian air defences accidentally shot down a plane belonging to ally Russia, killing thoseonboard, after being activated against nearbyIsraelimissiles.

Israel rarely confirms specific strikes inSyria, but its military has said it hit some 50 targets in 2020 alone.

Israel says it is trying to prevent Iran, which has been one of the Syrian government's key allies in the decade-old civil war, from gaining a permanent military footholdonits doorstep.

Thousands of Shiite militia recruited from a variety of countries but whose first allegiance is to Iran have been deployed acrossSyriain support of the government.

The war inSyria, which began when the government bloodily repressed pro-democracy demonstrations 10 years ago, has left more than 388,000 people dead.