DAMASCUS — An overnight Israeli airstrike in central Syria has killed one Syrian soldier and wounded three others, Syria's defense ministry said on Thursday.

Wednesday’s attack was near the city of Palmyra in Homs province. “At approximately 23:34 (20:34 GMT) the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression... on the area of Palmyra targeting a communication tower and several positions in its vicinity,” The Syrian state news agency SANA reported quoting a military source.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said the attack targeted several Iranian positions, among them the communication tower, near the T4 airbase east of Palmyra.

The Observatory said Israeli fighter jets flew over the Iraqi- Syria-Jordan border triangle when it carried out the attack.

It reported that the attack killed one Syrian soldier and three pro-Iranian fighters, but their nationality was not immediately clear.

According to the Observatory, several other Israeli missiles were intercepted by Syrian air defences.

It said seven other people, including three Syrian soldiers, were wounded.

In a rare acknowledgement their bases had been struck, Iran-backed groups in Syria vowed retaliation. The groups said they will “have a harsh response” to the Israeli strikes in Palmyra.

The groups also blamed the United States for the strikes, which originated from Tanf, where the U.S. has a small outpost in the area that straddles the Baghdad-Damascus highway.

The groups said the strikes hit service and youth centers, causing a number of causalities, between dead and wounded. The groups did not provide details.

The incident came days after Syrian state media reported that Syrian air defences intercepted an Israeli missile attack above the Homs countryside, wounding six Syrian soldiers and causing some material damage.

The Observatory reported that two pro-Iranian foreign fighters were killed in that attack.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has routinely carried out airstrikes inside Syria, mostly at Syrian government troops, as well as Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces allied to the Damascus regime.

The Israeli army rarely acknowledges individual strikes but has said repeatedly that it will not allow Syria to become a stronghold of its arch-foe Iran.

Recently, there has been an intensification of such strikes, with the last being on Friday in the same area, wounding six soldiers. — Agencies