A woman walks with grocery shopping bags along a market street in the town of Jindayris in the northwest of Syria's Aleppo province on Feb 5, 2024. (PHOTO / AFP)

CAIRO - Israeli strikes on the northern Syrian city of Aleppo early on Friday killed 38 people, including five members of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, two security sources said.

The Syrian defense ministry said earlier on Friday that a number of civilians and military personnel were killed after Israel and militant groups launched attacks against Aleppo.

The Israeli airstrikes targeted several areas in Aleppo's countryside at about 1:45 am local time (2245 GMT), the ministry said in a statement.

The airstrikes coincided with drone attacks carried out from Idlib and western rural Aleppo that the ministry described as having been conducted by "terrorist organizations" targeting civilians in Aleppo and its surroundings.

The aggression resulted in the martyrdom and injury of a number of civilians and military personnel and caused material losses to public and private property.

The Syrian defense ministry

However, the ministry did not mention a specific death toll or clarify whether the casualties were caused by the Israeli airstrikes or the attacks by militant groups.

"The aggression resulted in the martyrdom and injury of a number of civilians and military personnel and caused material losses to public and private property," the statement said.

The Israeli military declined to comment.

Since the Oct 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians and soldiers, Israel has escalated its strikes on what it says are bases of Iranian-backed militia in Syria. It has also struck Syrian army air defenses and some Syrian forces.

Israel has for years carried out such attacks in Syria, where Tehran's influence has grown since it began supporting President Bashar al-Assad in a civil war that started in 2011.

Fighters including Hezbollah now hold sway in vast areas of eastern, southern and northwestern Syria and in several suburbs around the capital.

Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the war erupted in Gaza, the biggest escalation since they fought a month-long conflict in 2006.