Five killed in Israeli airstrikes on Syria-Lebanon border: Monitor

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Israeli airstrikes targeted a convoy of pro-Iran militias on the Syria-Lebanon border, killing at least five people, reported a war monitor on Tuesday.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that the airstrikes targeted a convoy of trucks heading from Syria into Lebanon, near the Hezbollah-controlled al-Qusayr area. Five people, including three Syrian nationals, were killed in the attack.

Several others were injured as the trucks went up in flames “hundreds of meters inside Lebanese territory,” according to the watchdog.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on regime-controlled areas of Syria throughout its nearly 13-year civil war, often claiming to target pro-Iran militias such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah group that supports the Syrian army.

Israel has intensified its strikes on Syria since October 7. It has attacked Syrian territory at least 44 times since the start of the year, killing at least 165 people, including 33 Hezbollah fighters and 23 members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to SOHR.

At least 17 pro-Iran militiamen were killed in Israeli strikes on the town of Hayyan in northern Aleppo in early June.

While it rarely comments on strikes attributed to it in Syria, Israel has repeatedly warned that it would not tolerate its arch-rival Iran gaining a foothold there.