Two injured in Israeli ‘aggression’ targeting Syria’s Tartus – ministry

(Reuters) -Syria on Saturday accused Israel of launching an “air aggression” from the Mediterranean west of Lebanon’s second city Tripoli, with several missiles targeting an area to the south of Tartus.

This led to the injury of two civilians and some material damage, the Syrian ministry of defence said.

The Israeli military declined to comment on the strike, which would be the first since Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid took office as the head of Israel’s interim government ahead of a Nov. 1 election.

For several years, Israel has been attacking what it has described as Iranian-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran-backed forces, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, have been deployed to support Syrian President Bahar al-Assad.

Following the 2015 Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war, Israel set up a “deconfliction mechanism” with Russia, which controls the Tartus naval facility, to prevent the two nations clashing inadvertently during Israeli strikes.

(Reporting by Omar Fahmy; Editing by William Mallard and Jan Harvey)