UPDATE - Israeli warplanes strike targets in Syria: Army

*UPDATES WITH SYRIAN DOWNED JET CLAIMS

JERUSALEM (AA) - Israeli fighter jets at dawn Friday struck a number of targets in next-door Syria, according to the Israeli military.

In a rare confirmation, the Israeli army said in a statement that “a number” of its warplanes had struck positions inside Syrian territory.

It did not provide additional details except to say that “several anti-aircraft missiles” had been fired from Syria during the operation, one of which, it claimed, had been intercepted by Israeli air-defense systems.

Israel’s Channel Two reported that the strikes had targeted a “strategic” arms shipment bound for Lebanon's Shia Hezbollah group in northern Syria.

The Syrian regime, for its part, has claimed that its air defenses had downed an Israeli jet that entered Syrian airspace, according to its official SANA news agency.

“Syrian air defenses downed one of four Israeli warplanes that violated Syrian airspace and targeted a military site in Homs’ eastern countryside [in western Syria],” SANA quoted the Syrian Army’s General Command as saying.

According to the news agency, regime air defenses had also “struck another [Israeli] jet and forced the other two to withdraw”.

Since the outbreak of the Syria conflict in 2011, Israel has occasionally struck positions inside its war-ravaged neighbor, especially after shells allegedly fired from Syrian territory fell inside the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

*Mahmoud Barakat contributed to this report