The Syrian army says Israeli jets have attacked a military base in the west of the country, amid reports of a strike on a suspected chemical weapons site. A statement said rockets fired from Lebanese airspace hit the site near Masyaf, killing two soldiers.
Arab media and a monitoring group reported that a chemical weapons production facility was targeted. Israel, which has carried out clandestine attacks on weapons sites in Syria before, has not commented.
An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to discuss the reports, saying it does not comment on operational matters.
The attack comes a day after UN human rights investigators said they had concluded a Syrian Air Force jet had dropped a bomb containing the nerve agent Sarin on a rebel-held town in April, killing at least 83 people.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said the incident in Khan Sheikhoun – which prompted the US to launch a missile strike on an air base – was a “fabrication”.
He has also insisted his forces destroyed their entire chemical arsenal under a deal brokered by the US and Russia after a Sarin attack outside Damascus in 2013.
The Syrian army said rockets struck the base near Masyaf, about 35km (22 miles) west of the city of Hama, at 02:42 on Thursday (23:42 GMT on Wednesday), causing “material damage” and the deaths of two personnel.
It accused Israel of attacking “in a desperate attempt to raise the collapsed morale” of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) and warned Israel about “the dangerous repercussions of such hostile acts on the security and stability of the region”.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said the rockets hit a Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC) facility and also a military camp nearby that was used to store ground-to-ground rockets.
A Western intelligence agency told the BBC in May that three branches of the SSRC – at Masyaf, and at Dummar and Barzeh, both just outside Damascus – were being used to produce chemical munitions in violation of the 2013 deal.
The SSRC is promoted as a civilian research institute by the Syrian government, but the US accuses the agency of focusing on the development of non-conventional weapons and the means to deliver them.
