UPDATE 1930 GMT: An Israeli Patriot missile has intercepted and downed a “foreign aircraft” over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights near the Syrian border, the Israel Defense Forces said.

The aircraft was reportedly an Assad regime drone, but the IDF said it could not confirm the details.

In July 2016, a Russian drone flew into Israeli airspace, prompting the air force to launch three Patriot missiles. The IDF failed to down the drone, which returned to Syria.

The launch of the Patriot missile:

“Huge blasts” are reported at the Assad regime’s Mezzeh airbase near Syria’s capital Damascus, with local media blaming an Israeli airstrike.

The pro-regime site Damascus Now said the explosion was near the city’s Seventh Bridge, leading to the airport road. Some Syrian opposition outlets said a missile strike on a weapons warehouse led to the explosion of fuel silos.

An unnamed “regional intelligence source” said an Israeli strike targeted an Iran-supplied Hezbollah arms depot.

A flight tracker site, Flightradar.com, reports that four Iranian cargo planes — two military and two commercial — landed in Damascus at Damascus International Airport hours before the explosions.

Intelligence Affairs Minister Yisrael Katz told Army Radio on Thursday morning that the strike was “entirely consistent with our policy to prevent the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah.”

There was no immediate comment on the explosions from either the Assad regime or Israeli military.

Israel has carried out a series of airstrikes since the Syrian conflict began in 2011, primarily on advanced weapons systems and on warehouses and convoys believed to be carrying weapons to the Assad regime ally’s Hezbollah. In January, Assad regime media said the Israelis were responsible for a missile attack on Mezzeh.

TOP PHOTO: Fires at the Assad regime’s Mezzeh airbase after an attack, January 2017 (AFP)