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BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian military air defenses struck an Israeli warplane and shot down Israeli missiles targeting the T4 air base in Homs province in response to an act of "aggression" on Sunday night, Syrian state media said.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said Israel does not comment on foreign reports.
Israel has grown greatly by the expansion of its arch enemy Iran during the seven-year war in neighboring Syria. Israel's air force has struck Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Damascus, Iran and Russia, blamed Israel for an April 9 air strike on the same Homs base, an attack that killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) members. Tehran vowed at the time to respond.
Syrian state news agency SANA said the missile attack on Sunday caused damage.
"Our air defense systems thwarted an Israeli aggression and brought down a number of missiles that were targeting the T4 airport," he quoted a military source as saying.
The air defenses hit one of the "attacking planes and forced the rest to leave" Syrian air space, it added.
In May, Israel said it attacked Tehran's military infrastructure in Syria, accusing Iranian forces of firing rockets at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, in the most extensive military exchange between the two foes.
An Israeli-Iranian showdown also in Syria, when Israel said an armed drone coming from the T4 base penetrated its air space. Israel is flying the drone and it's a raid on Syrian air defenses, in which one of its F-16 jets was downed.
Reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut, additional reporting by Kinda Makieh in Damascus, Ali Idris in Washington and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem; Editing by Keith Weir and Peter Graff
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