Three Syrian soldiers die in fresh Israeli missile strikes

DAMASCUS, June 02 (Agencies): A total of three Syrian soldiers were killed and seven others wounded on Sunday by fresh Israeli missile strikes on military sites in the south of the country, state news agency SANA reported.

Citing a military statement, SANA said the first Israeli strike started at 3:22 a.m. and targeted military sites in the southwestern countryside of the capital Damascus.

The Syrian air defenses intercepted some of the missiles, which came from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, it added.

Fewer than an hour later, Israel renewed its attacks by firing several missiles on the eastern countryside of Quneitra Province near the Golan, killing three soldiers and wounding seven others.

Israel has repeatedly targeted Syrian military sites which it claims belong to Iran-backed militia groups.

The Syrian government has repeatedly charged Israel supports the terror groups in Syria, saying its strikes are nothing but a way to lift the rebels' morale.

Meanwhile, the Syrian army's anti-aircraft defence was activated Sunday against "enemy missiles" fired from Israel at "positions" in southwest Damascus, the official SANA news agency quoted a military source as saying.

"At dawn Sunday, enemy air targets arrived from the occupied Golan", the military source said. "Our air defence blocked and shot down these enemy missiles which targeted our positions in southwest Damascus."

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "warehouses and positions" in the Kesswa region, where Syrian and Iranian forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters allied to Damascus have been stationed, were targeted.

Located southwest of the capital, the area has been targeted several times in the past.

Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes in Syria, most of them against what it says are Iranian and Hezbollah targets.

Israel says it is determined to prevent its arch foe Iran from entrenching itself militarily in Syria, where Tehran backs President Bashar al-Assad in the country's eight-year war which has killed more than 370,000 people.

The Jewish state insists that it has the right to continue to target positions in Syria held by Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.

On May 27 Syria said Israel carried out a missile attack in Quneitra, in what the Israeli army said was retaliation for anti-aircraft fire targeting one of its fighter jets.

Syrian air defence batteries intercepted projectiles coming from Israel and downed a number of them on May 17, according to SANA.