Israeli airstrikes killed 16 people in western Syria and wounded dozens more overnight, Syrian state media reported on Monday.
The Syrian state news agency SANA, citing a military source, said Israel had launched the strikes at around 11:20 p.m. on Sunday and targeted "a number of military sites in the central region,” without elaborating on what was struck.
Syrian air defenses had shot down some of the missiles, the source said, according to Reuters. SANA cited a local health official as saying 36 people had been wounded, six of whom were in serious condition.
Two regional intelligence sources said a major military research center for chemical arms production located near Masyaf, in Hama province near the Mediterranean coast, had been hit several times. They said it was believed to house a team of Iranian military experts involved in weapons production.
However, a senior regional military source close to Damascus and Tehran denied the accounts that it was a chemical weapons facility, saying that the target was a well-known Syrian research facility.
The Syrian foreign ministry condemned the attack as an act of blatant aggression. In addition to the 16 fatalities and 36 wounded, it had caused "material damage to some residential areas,” it said in a statement reported by SANA.
Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said Tehran strongly condemned the "criminal attack" in Syria.
"We do not confirm what was reported by media outlets linked to the Zionist regime (Israel) about an attack on an Iranian center or a center under Iran's protection,” he said during a news conference, in response to a question about the attack.
Syrian state media also reported that the strikes caused two fires, which firefighters were working to extinguish.
