ANKARA 

Israel’s military fired missiles Monday on areas south of Syria’s capital Damascus belonging to forces loyal to the Bashar al-Assad regime, state media reported. 

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said the attack was directed from the occupied Syrian Golan Heights against some military sites, adding the country’s air defenses shot down most of the missiles before they reached their targets.

The airstrikes left two Syrian soldiers dead and seven wounded and caused material damage, SANA said.

Israel has occupied most of the Syrian Golan Heights since the 1967 Middle East War.

Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes against targets in Syria, including on Assad regime military sites and Iranian-backed groups.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 10 million others displaced, according to UN officials.