The IDF struck weapons depots in the Latakia area of Syria, containing surface-to-surface missiles, the IDF confirmed in a statement on Friday evening.

The IAF also struck surface-to-air missile components.

One civilian was killed in the strike on Latakia, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported. The weapons posed an international threat as well as a threat to Israel’s maritime navigation abilities, the IDF statement said.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the strikes were done to defend Israel’s security. “The IDF attacked and destroyed strategic weapons across Syria this evening that posed an immediate threat to the State of Israel. We will not allow threats, and no party will have immunity – we will continue to defend Israel’s security.” Advertisement

This comes after news this week that Israel and Syria are in direct contact and have, in recent weeks, held face-to-face meetings aimed at calming tensions and preventing conflict in the border region between the two longtime foes. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa meets with U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria Tom Barrack in Istanbul, Turkey, May 24, 2025. (credit: Muammer Tan/Turkish Foreign Ministry/Handout via REUTERS)

The contacts mark a significant development in ties between states that have been on opposite sides of conflict in the Middle East for decades, as the US encourages the new Islamist rulers in Damascus to establish relations with Israel and Israel eases its bombardment of Syria.

They also build on back-channel talks via intermediaries since Islamist rebels Hayat Tahrir al-Sham toppled Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad in December, said two Syrian and two Western sources, as well as a regional intelligence source familiar with the matter.

US envoy in Syria, believes in better Syria-Israel ties

The United States’ newly appointed Syria envoy, Thomas Barrack, said he believed peace between Syria and Israel was achievable. Barrack made his first trip to Damascus on Thursday, praising the Islamist-led government and saying it was ready for dialogue.

“Syria and Israel are a solvable problem. But it starts with a dialogue,” Barrack told a small group of journalists in Damascus. “I’d say we need to start with just a non-aggression agreement, talk about boundaries and borders,” he said. Advertisement

Barrack also met with Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa on May 24 to “implement President Trump’s bold decision to provide a path for peace and prosperity in Syria,” he wrote on social media.

Syria sanctions recently lifted by US

Syria welcomed the US moving to lift sanctions on the country after the US Treasury Department put out a statement on May 23.

Syria’s foreign ministry called it a “positive step” and said that it was important to use diplomacy to build a “balanced relationship,” according to regional Arabic media reports.

This comes after US President Donald Trump met with Syria’s president al-Sharaa in Riyadh in early May. It also comes after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressed the importance of working with Israel’s northeastern neighbor.

Israeli airstrikes hit western Syria late Friday, killing one civilian and targeting what the Israeli military described as weapons sites threatening maritime navigation in the region. The attacks, centered near the coastal cities of Latakia and Tartous, marked the first such strikes in nearly a month, breaking a period of relative calm during recent talks between Israel and Syria’s interim leadership.

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the country’s military “attacked and destroyed strategic weapons across Syria this evening that posed an immediate threat to the state of Israel.” “We will not allow threats, and no party will have immunity—we will continue to defend Israel’s security,” he continued.

The Israeli military said the strikes hit storage sites for surface-to-surface missiles and components of air defense systems, which posed risks to both international and Israeli shipping.

According to Syrian state media, Israeli aircraft struck the area around the village of Zama in the Jableh district near Latakia. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the attacks also targeted military positions on the outskirts of Tartous. One civilian was reportedly killed in the Latakia strike.

Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes in Syria since the civil war began, aiming to block weapons transfers to armed groups it sees as threats. Recent diplomatic efforts had signaled a potential thaw, including news that Israel is in direct contact with the new Syrian government, led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa.

The situation in Gaza is the worst since the war between Israel and Hamas terrorists began 19-months ago, the United Nations said on Friday, despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries in the Palestinian enclave.

Under growing global pressure, Israel ended an 11-week long blockade on Gaza 12 days ago, allowing limited UN-led operations to resume. Then on Monday, a controversial new avenue for aid distribution was also launched – the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, backed by the United States and Israel.

“Any aid that gets into the hands of people who need it is good,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York. But, he added, the aid deliveries so far overall have had “very, very little impact.”

“The catastrophic situation in Gaza is the worst since the war began,” he said.

The UN and international aid groups have refused to work with the GHF because they say it is not neutral and has a distribution model that forces the displacement of Palestinians.

Defence Minister Israel Katz confirmed the Israeli Air Force conducted a strike in Damascus on Thursday, with the military saying it had hit a “command centre” of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.

A war monitor reported one person killed, with Syrian state media saying the strike had targeted a building in the capital.

Islamic Jihad fought alongside Hamas against Israel in Gaza before a fragile truce began in January.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that such strikes would be carried out across the region against “whoever attacks us”.

Israel Katz. Picture: Menahem Kahana / AFP

“There will be no immunity for Islamic terrorism against Israel,” Katz said in a statement. “We will not allow Syria to become a threat to the state of Israel.” The Israeli military said the “command centre was used to plan and direct terrorist activities by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad” against Israel.

A source in Islamic Jihad said a building belonging to the group had been hit by Israeli jets, adding there were “martyrs and wounded” in the strike.

Ismail Sindawi, Islamic Jihad’s representative in Syria, told AFP the targeted building had been “closed for five years and nobody from the movement frequented it”. Israel was just sending a message, Sindawi said.

Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that three civilians were wounded, including one woman in a critical condition.

It said the strike targeted an office that had been “abandoned since the liberation of Damascus”, when Islamist-led rebels toppled president Bashar al-Assad in December.

The building in Damascus is in an area where Palestinian leaders are known to reside. Picture: Louai Beshara / AFP

An AFP photographer saw the facade of the three-storey building completely destroyed and flames coming out from a balcony.

Netanyahu vowed to carry out more such strikes if needed.

“We attacked an Islamic Jihad headquarters in the heart of Damascus. We did this because we have a clear policy: Whoever attacks us or plans to attack us – we strike them,” Netanyahu said in a video statement.

“And this applies not only in Syria but everywhere, including Lebanon,” where Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah engaged in more than a year of hostilities until a ceasefire was reached in November.

Hundreds of air strikes

On Thursday evening, the Israeli military said it had carried out a strike in eastern Lebanon.

“A short while ago, the IDF (military) conducted a strike on infrastructure at a site used by Hezbollah for manufacturing and storing strategic weapons in the Beqaa area in Lebanon,” the military said in a statement.

In November, Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a US-French mediated truce that has largely halted more than a year of fighting between the two sides, including two months of full-blown war in which Israel sent in ground troops.

While the ceasefire continues to hold, Israel has periodically carried out air strikes in Lebanon that it says are to prevent Hezbollah from rearming or returning to the area along its northern border.

Since Assad’s overthrow, Israel has also carried out hundreds of air strikes in Syria and deployed troops to a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the strategic Golan Heights.

Netanyahu has previously said southern Syria must be completely demilitarised, warning that his government would not accept the presence of the forces of the new authorities near its territory.

The strike in Damascus came just before Syria’s leader Ahmed al-Sharaa hailed the start of a “new history” for his country, signing into force a constitutional declaration regulating a five-year transitional period and laying out rights for women and freedom of expression.

Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar has repeatedly warned that world leaders should be wary of the new leadership in Syria, warning that a “jihadist group” was now ruling the country.

Sharaa was the head of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the toppling of Assad and has its roots in the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. It has since sought to moderate its image, but is still listed as a terrorist organisation by the United States and other governments.

After years of diplomatic isolation under Assad, diplomats from the West and Syria’s neighbours have reached out to Syria’s new rulers.

Even before Assad’s fall, during the Syrian civil war that broke out in 2011, Israel carried out hundreds of strikes in the country, mainly on government forces and Iranian-linked targets.