An Israeli missile attack on Friday near Damascus killed three soldiers and wounded seven more, Syrian state media reported, in what a war monitor said was the 17th Israeli attack on Syrian territory this year.

The Israeli military said it does not comment on foreign reports.

Israel has been carrying out strikes for years against what it has described as Iranian and Iran-backed targets in Syria, where Tehran has deployed forces in support of President Bashar al-Assad since the Syrian war began in 2011.

Citing a military source, Syria’s SANA news agency said Israel “carried out an aerial aggression” at 00:32 a.m., (2132 GMT Thursday), firing missiles from the Golan Heights targeting “a number of positions in the vicinity of Damascus”.

Syrian air defences managed to shoot down some of the missiles, SANA added.

The attack also caused material damage, SANA reported, without providing further details.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Israeli missiles had been fired at targets including air force intelligence offices in the area of Mezze air base on the western edge of Damascus.

An Iranian weapons store in the area of Sayyida Zeinab - a shrine on the southern outskirts of Damascus - was also destroyed, said the Observatory, which reports on the war using what it describes as a network of sources on all sides.

Reuters could not independently verify the SANA or Observatory reports.

The Syrian government last reported an Israeli attack on July 2 which it said targeted an area south of the Mediterranean city of Tartus and injured two civilians.

In June, Syria briefly halted flights to and from Damascus airport after saying an Israeli attack damaged the airstrip and a terminal.

Iran said two officers from its Revolutionary Guards were killed in an Israeli air strike in Syria in March, prompting Tehran to vow revenge.