The air strike in the Adeliyah region outside Damascus targeted what the Israeli military called "a hub of Islamic Jihad's activity in Syria," including the research and development of weapons.

The Israeli announcement came shortly after Syrian state media said its air defences had intercepted "hostile targets" over the Syrian capital, Damascus.

The strike escalated the latest round of hostilities, which began on Sunday, when Israeli troops killed an Islamic Jihad member trying to plant explosives near Israel's border fence with the Gaza Strip.

Video footage shot by a Gaza photographer and widely posted on social media showed what appeared to be the body of the militant dangling from an Israeli military bulldozer as it removed the corpse.

Palestinian health officials said two other Palestinians were wounded by Israeli gunfire when they tried to recover the body.

The images caused an uproar in Gaza, with many social media commentators calling for retaliation.

Islamic Jihad fired a barrage of rockets from Gaza into Israel, setting off air-raid sirens in communities such as Ashkelon. Israel hit back with a series of air strikes in Gaza.

The Israeli military said that among the "dozens" of targets struck in Gaza were underground infrastructure and compounds in Rafah that had been used to store raw material used for manufacturing rockets.

Australian Associated Press