Iranian forces in Syria fire rockets into Golan Heights: Israeli military

Iranian forces based in Syria fired 20 rockets at Israeli front-line military positions in the Golan Heights early Thursday, the Israeli military said, triggering an Israeli reprisal and escalating already heightened tensions.

The Israeli military said its Iron Dome rocket defence system intercepted some of the incoming projectiles, while others caused only minimal damage. There were no Israeli casualties.

The Syrian capital of Damascus shook with sounds of explosions just before dawn, and firing by Syrian air defences over the city was heard throughout the night. An Israeli official said Israel was targeting Iranian positions inside Syria.

Lt.-Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesperson, said Iran's Al Quds force fired the rockets at several Israeli bases, though he would not say how Israel determined the Iranian involvement. The incoming attack set off air raid sirens in the Israeli-controlled Golan, which was captured from Syria in the 1967 war.

Israel "views this Iranian attack very severely," Conricus told reporters. He said Israel had responded, but did not provide details.

"This event is not over," he said.

The Syrian state news agency SANA, citing a military source, said Israeli rocket fire struck several Syrian air defence positions, a radar site and an ammunition depot. 

The country's air defences had brought down "tens of Israeli rockets," some of them south of Homs, according to SANA. 

Earlier, SANA and a war monitor reported artillery fire from Israeli-held territory at Baath City in Quneitra province.

The war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said rockets were fired at military positions of the Syrian army and allied forces in Baath City.

The hostilities came a night after Syria accused Israel of striking one of its military bases south of Damascus, an attack that the Syrian Observatory said killed 15 people, including eight Iranians.

Tensions have recently surged between Israel and Syria, where Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces have been helping Damascus beat back a seven-year-old rebellion.

Tensions flaring 

Fearing that Iran and Hezbollah are setting up a Lebanese-Syrian front against it, Israel has occasionally struck at their forces. Iran blamed it for an April 9 airstrike that killed seven of its military personnel in Syria, and vowed revenge.

Conricus said that, in Thursday's attack, around 20 projectiles, most likely rockets, were fired by the Quds Force, an external arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, around 12.10 a.m. local time.

Expectations of a regional flare-up were stoked by U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement on Tuesday that he was withdrawing from the Iranian nuclear deal. Hours later, Israeli rockets targeted a military base in Kisweh, a city just south of Damascus, a commander in the pro-Syrian government regional alliance said.

Israel has neither confirmed or denied responsibility for that strike.