DAMASCUS, Jan 09 (Agencies): Syria's military accused Israel of launching missiles targeting its outposts near Damascus in a wave of three pre-dawn attacks Tuesday and claimed that the Syrian air force hit one of the Israeli jets and shot down several of the missiles.
In a statement, the army said the Syrian air defense confronted the early morning attacks on military outposts in the area of Qutayfeh in the Damascus countryside.
Several missiles were first launched from Lebanese airspace at 2:40 a.m., followed by two ground to ground missiles at 3:04 a.m. that were launched from the occupied Golan Heights and four missiles at 4:14 a.m., launched from the Tiberias area, or the Sea of Galilee, in northern Israel, the statement said.
The military said the attacks caused material damage.
The Israeli military declined to comment on the matter.
Israel has carried out dozens of airstrikes inside Syria in the course of Syria's civil war, against what it says are suspected arms shipments believed to be bound for Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, which is fighting alongside Syrian government forces. Tuesday's strike was the first this year.
The Syrian army statement described the attack as a "flagrant Israeli aggression" and renewed its warning of the dangerous repercussions of such attacks, holding Israel "fully responsibility for its consequences."
Some Syrian opposition-affiliated media reported that the Israeli planes targeted a Syrian army depot while the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the depots belonged to both Hezbollah and the Syrian army, adding that the strikes caused a series of explosions and a fire on site as well as serious material damage.
The Israeli air force carried out strikes on the Qutayfeh area northeast of Damascus, hitting near the military position and causing the Syrian army to retaliate and "hit one of its planes", the army said.
Israel also launched land-to-land missiles into Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, but the Syrian army intercepted them, it said.
Israel's army has carried out several attacks on the Syrian army and its ally Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah since the start of the conflict in Syria in 2011.
Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.
Syria and Israel remain technically at war, and the Jewish state fought a devastating war against Hezbollah in 2006.
DAMASCUS: Map of southern Syria and northern Israel, locating reported Israeli airstrike in the Qutayfeh area.--AFP
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