TEHRAN - Israeli forces have launched what has been described as “the heaviest strikes” since the start of the regime’s aggression against Syria. 

The strikes on Monday morning targeted Tartus, a major port city on the Mediterranean coast of Syria, killing civilians. 

Videos circulating online show the impact of the blasts triggering a huge mushroom cloud in the air. 

The massive explosions lit up the skies in Syria as Israeli airstrikes reportedly targeted military sites in the eastern Tartus region. 

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, “Israeli warplanes launched strikes” targeting a series of sites including air defense units and “surface-to-surface missile depots,” with the blasts so powerful that they registered on the Richter scale at a magnitude 3.1 on seismic sensors.

Videos circulating online captured the moment of the explosions, showing a bright flash followed by a towering mushroom cloud of smoke. 

Researchers noted that the blast signals traveled nearly twice as fast as a typical earthquake and were detected by a magnetometer station as far as 820 kilometers away in Isnik in western Turkey.

An unknown number of civilians have reportedly been killed and injured. 

Hebrew media, commenting on the huge Israeli aggression, described the assault as “Hiroshima in Tartus” reflecting the intensity of the air raids.

Fires also broke out in forests at a town in the Duraykish area 32 kilometers east of Tartus as a result of the Israeli aggression.

Reporters on the ground emphasized that this was the most intense assault on Tartus, carried out by Israeli warships, and no one was able to reach the areas hit by the attack.

They added that the Israeli aggression targeted 12 sites over several hours, including radar stations, air defense systems, and strategic weapons depots.

Additionally, sources told local media that blasts continued to be heard in the Tartus countryside as a result of the attack, which targeted strategic missile depots.

This comes as reports from Syria say the Israeli occupation regime has targeted a military site in the al-Bukamal desert in the eastern Deir ez-Zor province, near the border with Iraq. 

The reports noted that the airstrikes targeted more than five military sites, from Deir ez-Zor to the capital Damascus. 

Meanwhile, Israeli regime forces continued to expand ground operations in southern Syria from several directions.

According to observers, the Israeli occupation forces have advanced 26 kilometers from the slopes of Jabal Sheikh (Mount Hermon) into the southern countryside of Damascus, along the border with Lebanon.

Expansion of the Israeli occupation also coincided with the eastern side of the occupied Syrian Golan reaching some 12 kilometers into Quneitra province and its eastern countryside.

Israeli occupation forces also advanced into a village in southern Quneitra, near the administrative border of Daraa province, near Jordan while simultaneously advancing in the far southwestern part of Syria in the Yarmouk River. 

Israeli occupation forces are now just 15 kilometers from the international highway between Damascus and Beirut, having also taken control of vital sources of fresh water in southern Syria, located along the Yarmouk River.

Reporters say Israeli troops are moving to control the town of Al-Muallaqa in southern Syria.

The wide-scale Israeli aggression and expansion of its military presence have been met with no resistance from the new interim Syrian government.