An air strike by Israel on Syria caused an explosion so big it could be felt more than 500 miles away.
Video footage shows a enormous orange blast in the distance that fills the sky, shortly before the explosion can be heard.
The attack of what Israel says are military sites in Syria’s coastal Tartus region has been described as the ‘heaviest strikes’ since the country began targeting the area over a decade ago.
The explosion was so large, it reportedly measured as a magnitude 3.0 on seismic sensors.
One researcher, Richard Cordaro, said the blast was detected by a magnetometer station 820km (509 miles) away in Isnik in western Turkey, MailOnline reports.
Tartus has been the site of one of Russia’s two military bases in Syria and was used as an ammunition depot and a naval base.
It’s thought the ammunitions may have contributed to the size of the blast, as well as secondary explosions.
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said today: ‘Israeli warplanes launched strikes’ targeting a series of sites including air defence units and ‘surface-to-surface missile depots’.
It added that the attack were ‘the heaviest strikes in Syria’s coastal region since the start of strikes in 2012’.
The pounding comes just a week after the fall of the country’s dictator Bashar al-Assad, who had Russia’s support.
Although Israel has not commented on today’s attack, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week he approved the bombing of strategic military sites left by the Syrian military ‘so that they will not fall into the hands of the jihadists’.
Meanwhile, Giora Eiland, the former head of Israel’s National Security Council, told The Telegraph that one of the nation’s main strategic priorities was to make sure the next leader of Syria would not have the ability to attack Israel.
He said: ‘There is no army to stop us. So it’s a very easy mission to destroy Syria’s strategic capabilities.’
The military site hit today was used for the delivery of armaments and supplies as Russia intervened in the Syrian civil war in 2015.
Vladimir Putin expanded the facility in 2017, after Assad offered Russia a free 49-year lease on the site in exchange for helping keep him in power.
Experts believe the number of Russians stationed there fell significantly after Putin invaded Ukraine.
Russia’s foreign ministry said it had evacuated some of its diplomatic staff from Syria since Assad’s fall.
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Last week Israeli troops also seized the Golan buffer zone on the Israeli-Syrian border, which has sparked condemnation
Critics accuse Israel of violating the 1974 ceasefire and potentially exploiting the current instability of Syria to gain land.
Netanyahu said his country ‘will not allow any hostile force to establish itself on our border’.
A rebel coalition dominated by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled Assad, who fled to Russia along with his family, after an 11 day offensive.
Warning: Distressing content below
As it targets Syria, Israel continues to attack Lebanon despite a ceasefire agreement between the two nations and its bombardment of Gaza – now in to its 14 month – shows no signs of stopping.
Overnight an Israeli strike on a school in the town of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza killed at least 15 people sheltering there, including children.
The dead included two parents and their daughter and a father and his son, Kamal Adwan Hospital said.
In Gaza City at least 17 people including six women and five children were killed in three Israeli airstrikes that hit houses sheltering displaced people, according to Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.
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‘We woke up to the strike. I woke up with the rubble on top of me,’ said Yahia al-Yazji. ‘I found my wife with her head and skull visible, and my daughter’s intestines were gone. My wife was three months pregnant.’
Israel said in a statement it targeted a ‘terrorist cell’ in Gaza City and a ‘terrorist meeting point’ in the Beit Hanoun area.
Another Israeli airstrike in central Gaza killed Palestinian journalist Ahmed al-Lawh, who worked for Al Jazeera, a hospital and the Qatari-based TV station said.
The death toll in Gaza has officially reached 45,000, though the real number is thought to be far higher.
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