Three Syrian soldiers killed in Israeli air strikes

Israeli missiles killed three Syrian soldiers and wounded another three in the province of Tartus and the capital of Damascus, Syrian state media said, without giving details of the specific locations.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that the airstrikes that killed three soldiers targeted a military position of regime forces in Damascus, while Reuters said the strikes hit outposts run by Lebanon's pro-Iranian Hezbollah group on the north of the capital, citing Syrian military defectors.

Reuters said an Iranian base and air defense station near the village of Abu Afsa, south of the port city of Tartus near the Mediterranean coast, was also targeted during the attacks.

The attacks on Damascus were carried out from a direction southeast of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, while the attacks on Tartus came from the Mediterranean sea, Al Jazeera reported. 

Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes to slow down Iran's growing entrenchment in Syria, targeting groups such as Lebanon's Hezbollah which supports the Syrian army, but has mostly avoided hitting the coastal provinces where Russia's main military assets are concentrated.

The strikes were close to the Russian navy's only Mediterranean base in the port of Tartus where Russian warships are docked, while Moscow's major Hmeimim air base is also in nearby Latakia province, Reuters reported.

Last month, three Israeli soldiers were killed and about seven others were wounded as a result of another Israeli strike on Damascus.