Syria accused Israel on Wednesday of launching a new missile attack on the province of Al-Quneitra in the south of the Arab country, the second such action by Israeli aircraft in the last ten days.

The official Syrian news agency SANA reported shortly before midnight of an attack on al-Quneitra and that anti-aircraft defences were repelling shells “from the Israeli aggression”, as well as releasing several videos and photographs of the alleged missiles streaking across the sky.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement that the action targeted military positions of forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allied Iranian militias in the province’s countryside.

The UK-based NGO, which has a wide network of partners on the ground, said that several explosions were heard in the area and that Syrian anti-aircraft defences were trying to deal with the attack, with no known casualties so far.

Ten days ago, another Israeli strike killed four members of the same family in the western province of Hama, while eastern Deir al-Zur was the scene in mid-January of the Jewish state’s deadliest attack in Syria, killing 57 government soldiers and pro-Iranian militiamen.

Israel often attacks targets of forces loyal to al-Assad and Lebanese or Iranian Shi’a militias allied to him, sometimes causing casualties among their ranks, although it does not generally speak publicly about them.

Israeli authorities consider the presence of Iranian or Iranian-allied forces there, as well as militiamen from its Lebanese rival, Hezbollah, to be a threat to their security.