Blasts in Syria after Israel says rockets fired at Golan

Syrian television reported big explosions near Damascus early on Sunday and said air defences had "confronted the enemy" after Israel said earlier that two rockets were fired from Syria into the territory it controls.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said late on Saturday that two rockets were fired towards the Israeli-held Golan Heights, causing no casualties, but that it was still unclear who had fired them or where they had landed.

In recent years, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria against its regional arch-foe Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah group, which it calls the biggest threat to its borders.

Iran and Hezbollah are fighting on the side of President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian war, and Israel says they are trying to turn Syria into a new front against Israelis.

Syria does not officially recognise Israel, which seized the Golan Heights from it in a war in 1967 and later announced it had annexed the captured territory.

On Monday, Israel’s military said it attacked a Syrian anti-aircraft position that had fired on one of its warplanes, and Syrian state media said a soldier had been killed in the incident.