A number of civilians and soldiers were killed and wounded at dawn today (Friday) in an Israeli air attack that targeted several points in the countryside of the city of Aleppo in northern Syria, according to Syrian official media.

The official Syrian news agency (SANA) quoted a military source as saying, “At approximately 1:45 a.m., the Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of Ithriya, southeast of Aleppo, targeting a number of points in the Aleppo countryside,” which resulted in “the killing and wounding of a number of civilians and military personnel and material losses to public and private property.”

The source added that the Israeli attack "coincided with a drone attack carried out by terrorist organizations from Idlib and the western countryside of Aleppo in an attempt to target civilians in the city of Aleppo and its environs."

For its part, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said today, "At least 36 members of the regime forces were killed and dozens were injured with varying injuries, some of them seriously, which makes it likely that the death toll will rise as a result of Israeli air strikes after midnight Thursday-Friday."

He continued that the Israeli strikes "hit a weapons depot belonging to the Lebanese Hezbollah in the Jibreen area near Aleppo International Airport," in addition to "defense laboratories" in the city of Al-Safira, southeast of Aleppo, while explosions sounded in the Kafr Joum area, west of Aleppo.

The Observatory indicated that ambulances and firefighting teams rushed to the site of the attacks to transport the wounded and put out the fires, amid a tight security cordon.

He stressed that "this death toll from regime forces is the highest" during previous Israeli strikes that targeted Syrian areas.

Two civilians were killed on Thursday in an Israeli bombing that targeted a residential building in the Damascus countryside, according to official media.

Over the years of the conflict that broke out in Syria in 2011, Israel launched attacks inside Syrian territory under the pretext of the presence of weapons depots belonging to Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah. These attacks intensified recently with the outbreak of war between the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Israel in the Gaza Strip on the 7th of Last October.