DAMASCUS, Syria (AFP)-An Israeli attack killed three soldiers near the capital Damascus, a Syrian official said Tuesday, though an external war monitor said the toll was higher.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since an Islamist-led alliance toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December.

It has also opened talks with the interim authorities in Damascus.

“An Israeli drone targeted one of the military buildings of the 44th division of the Syrian army in Kiswah, west of Damascus, killing three members of the division,” an official at the defence ministry told AFP, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights later said the toll had risen to six, all members of the 44th division.

Earlier Tuesday, the official SANA news agency reported that “a young man was killed in an Israeli strike on a home in the village of Taranja”, on the formerly Syria-controlled side of the armistice line on the Golan Heights.

Syria condemned “the recent Israeli attacks on its territory, which resulted in the martyrdom of a young man”, the foreign ministry said.

It also condemned the Israeli forces’ incursion into a town in the Quneitra countryside, their “arrest campaigns against civilians”, and their “announcement of the continuation of their illegal presence on the summit of Mount Hermon and the buffer zone”.

“These aggressive practices constitute a flagrant violation of the UN Charter, international law, and relevant Security Council resolutions, and constitute a direct threat to peace and security in the region.”

Since Assad’s overthrow, Israel has occupied much of a UN-patrolled demilitarised zone on the formerly Syria-controlled side of the armistice line, including the summit of Mount Hermon, the region’s highest peak.

Last week, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani met Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer in Paris to push for a return to the arrangements that had been in place since a 1974 disengagement agreement.