Death toll in Syria from Israeli strikes soars to 52: monitor

The death toll in Israeli air strikes on Syria has risen to 52, including 38 regime soldiers and seven members of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, a war monitor said.

Friday's strikes killed 38 Syrian soldiers, seven Hezbollah members and seven Syrian pro-Iran fighters, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday. This was up from a total of 44 according to an earlier toll.

Friday's strikes fuelled concerns of a wider regional conflagration.

They targeted "a rocket depot belonging to Lebanon's Hezbollah" near the Aleppo airport in northern Syria, according to the war monitor.

It was the latest deadly raid on Iran-backed forces in Syria, where Hezbollah has been backing the regime in its fight against the opposition since the 2011 Syrian civil war erupted.

Israeli strikes on targets in Syria have increased since Israel's war in Gaza started on October 7.

Israeli raids also regularly target Hezbollah in Lebanon in retaliation for cross-border fire. However, Israel rarely comments on individual strikes, and has neither confirmed nor denied the raids on Syria.

But Israel's military has said it killed the deputy head of Hezbollah's rocket unit in Lebanon, Ali Naim, whose death the Iran-backed group confirmed.

'One extended battleground'

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on social media that he visited northern Israel on Friday "to closely examine another successful termination like the one that was executed this morning", in Lebanon and Syria.

Israel's army would keep up its operations against Hezbollah everywhere, he said, adding: "We will make them pay a price for every attack that comes out from Lebanon."

Hezbollah, which has a powerful arsenal of rockets and missiles, has exchanged near-daily fire with the Israeli military since Israel waged a deadly military offensive on Gaza after an October 7 cross-border attack led by Hamas in which nearly 1,200 Israelis were killed.

More than 32,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in Gaza, in addition to mass destruction, displacement and famine conditions.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

"Syria and Lebanon have become one extended battleground from the Israeli perspective," Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, told AFP news agency.