Beirut:

An Israeli strike in Homs, Syria, killed four people on Wednesday, including two civilians, a war monitor told AFP. The Syrian Defense Ministry reported an unknown number of civilian casualties.

“The Israeli attack on the city of Homs resulted in the death of four people, including two civilians,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Syrian Defense Ministry reported that “the Israeli enemy launched air strikes from the northern direction of Tripoli (Lebanon), targeting multiple locations in the city of Homs and its countryside… causing multiple civilian casualties.”

Syrian state television shared footage of rescuers rummaging through the rubble of what appeared to be collapsed buildings and carrying someone on a stretcher.

Abdel Rahman told AFP the building where Homs was hit had completely collapsed.

Earlier, Syrian state television reported an “Israeli attack” in the central Syrian province of Homs.

The United States last week carried out strikes against Iranian-backed groups in Syria and Iraq, killing dozens of people in retaliation for deadly attacks on its troops in Jordan.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an Israeli attack near Damascus in January killed eight people, including pro-Iranian militants.

In Syria’s more than decade-long civil war, Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes across the country, mostly targeting Iranian-backed forces as well as Syrian army positions.

But since war broke out between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on October 7, such attacks have intensified.

Israel rarely comments on separate strikes against Syria but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran, which backs the government of President Bashar Assad, to expand its presence there.

Since 2011, Syria has experienced a bloody conflict that has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)