Israel sparks fear of all out war in Middle East as Syria strike leaves 16 dead

Fears of all out war in the Middle East were growing today after Israel launched deadly air strikes on a number of military sites in central Syria, killing at least 16 people.

The Syrian state news agency Sana cited a hospital director as saying that another 43 people were wounded in the attacks in the vicinity of Masyaf, in Hama province.

The multiple strikes, carried out on Sunday night, left at least 16 people dead, with emergency services attending numerous devastated sites.

Two regional intelligence sources said a major military research centre for chemical arms production located near Misyaf had been hit several times.

It is believed to house a team of Iranian military experts involved in weapons production.

A UK-based monitoring group reported that at least four soldiers and three civilians were killed in strikes that destroyed military and scientific facilities where Iran-backed armed groups were present.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group that monitors the conflict in the country through a network of sources on the ground, reported that “13 violent explosions rang out in the zone housing scientific research centres in Masyaf where pro-Iranian groups and weapons development experts are present”.

There was no immediate comment from Israel, which typically does not comment on specific reports of strikes in Syria.

However, it has previously acknowledged carrying out hundreds of strikes in recent years on targets in Syria that it says are linked to Iran and allied armed groups.

And since the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians and soldiers, Israel has escalated its strikes on Iranian-backed militia targets in Syria and has also struck Syrian army air defences and some Syrian forces.

"At around 23:20 on Sunday evening, the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of northwestern Lebanon, targeting a number of military sites in the central region (of Syria)," a Syrian military source told the SANA news agency.

"Our air defence systems confronted the aggression's missiles and shot down some of them," the source added, without providing further details.

The news agency reported that the strikes also caused damage to a local highway and that a fire broke out in the Hair Abbas area.

A local health official quoted by SANA said 43 people had been injured, including several critically, in the strikes.

Syria's state media also reported that the strikes caused two fires, which firefighters were working to extinguish.

Israel’s widening of its military action is seen as response to cross-border attacks on northern Israel by Hezbollah and other groups in Lebanon and Syria.

In the most high-profile attack on Syria since the war in Gaza began, suspected Israeli warplanes bombed Iran's embassy in April, a strike that Iran said killed seven military advisers, including three senior commanders.