Israel struck southern Syria on Sunday, with a war monitor reporting one killed and the Israeli military saying it had targeted a member of Palestinian militant group Hamas.
In the wake of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad's overthrow in December, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes and moved forces into the buffer zone that has separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the strategic Golan Heights since 1974.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said that one person was killed and two others wounded when Israel struck a vehicle in Mazraat Beit Jinn, a town near the UN-patrolled buffer zone.
The Israeli military said it "struck a Hamas terrorist in the area of Mazraat Beit Jinn."
Israel captured most of the Golan Heights in 1967 and later annexed it in a move not recognized by the United Nations.
Israel has said that the strikes on its northern neighbor since Assad's fall aimed to stop advanced weapons from reaching Syria's new Islamist-led authorities, whom it considers jihadists.
It has also occasionally targeted Palestinian militants in Syria.
The latest attack follows Israeli strikes earlier this week in retaliation for rocket fire claimed by two little-known groups, one of them named after a Hamas leader killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Syrian authorities had condemned the previous strikes while rejecting any involvement in the launches and vowing to "never be a threat" to anyone in the region.
AFP
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