DAMASCUS, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Israeli intense airstrikes on Syria after midnight Wednesday hit a number of military targets around Damascus, killing two civilians and 11 pro-government Iranian-backed fighters, according to state media and a war monitor.
After midnight, people in the capital were rattled by repeated sound of explosions from different directions, many of whom also saw the air defense missiles flying in the air, lighting up the sky.
A military statement was released by state news agency SANA that Israeli warplanes from the occupied Golan Heights and the Lebanese Marj Oyoun area targeted the vicinity of Damascus with a number of missiles, adding that most of the missiles were intercepted.
"Our air defenses were able to intercept the hostile missiles, destroying most of them before reaching their targets," said the statement.
Work is ongoing to assess the losses resulted from the airstrikes, it added.
Meanwhile, SANA said two Syrian civilians were killed when shrapnels hit their home in the town of Sasa in southern Damascus countryside. Other shrapnels of Israeli missiles hit a residential building in the Qudsaya suburb west of Damascus, injuring a little girl and leaving big damage in the building.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Israeli missiles targeted military positions in the Sehnaya, Kisweh and Sasa areas in southern Damascus, the Mazzeh air base and Jdaidet Artouz in western Damascus as well as in the Qudsaya suburb northwest of Damascus.
The UK-based watchdog group said weapon depots of the Iranian-run Failaq al-Quds were destroyed as well as a training camp. The strikes also targeted surface-to-air missile batteries and positions of the Syrian Army.
It said that 11 soldiers, including seven foreign pro-government fighters, were killed in the Israeli strikes.
An entire family was pulled from under the rubble when an Israeli missile fell in the area, said the observatory.
It's the second Israeli attack within 24 hours.
Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said following the strikes that "the rules have changed: anyone who shoots at the State of Israel during the day will not sleep at night."
Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes in Syria throughout the eight-year conflict, most of them against what it says were targets of Iranian-backed militia groups such as the Lebanese Hezbollah.
