Syria state news agency SANA reported that Syrian air defenses “confronted an aggression that targeted several points in the central region," damaging a highway in Hama province and sparking fires that firefighting teams were battling to control early Monday.

"The number of martyrs resulting from the Israeli aggression on a number of sites in the vicinity of Masyaf in Hama province has risen to 14 martyrs and 43 wounded including six critically," SANA reported citing a medical source.

The Syrian agency earlier reported at least five dead and 19 wounded.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, claimed that one of the strikes targeted a scientific research center in Maysaf and other sites where “Iranian and experts are stationed to develop weapons in Syria.”

Local media also reported strikes around the coastal city of Tartous.

Since the start of the civil war in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out, in complete impunity, hundreds of strikes there.

Israeli air raids in Syria have intensified since the war on Gaza began.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army.

In April, Israel killed a senior Iranian military commanders, and other six Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) officials in an airstrike on Iran’s consulate building in Damascus, sparking a retaliation against Israel.