Western media reports say Israel and Iran lurched closer to an all-out war on Thursday after the Israeli military struck ““almost all” of Iran’s bases in Syria in response to what it said was an Iranian rocket barrage fired at the Golan Heights.

The exchange of fire was the most direct confrontation between the two Middle East rivals after years of standoff in Syria and came just one day after Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear agreement and re-imposed sanctions on Iran, according to The Telegraph.

Israel reportedly carried out its largest wave of airstrikes in Syria since the 1973 war, striking around 50 Iranian military bases, supply depots, and intelligence sites as well as Syrian regime air defense batteries. 

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 23 people were killed by the Israeli strikes, 

The wave of strikes was in response to a barrage of 20 rockets which Israel said were fired by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard towards the Golan, a mountainous region that Israel annexed from Syria after capturing it in 1967.

Britain and the US were quick to issue messages of support for Israel and condemning Iran.

Meanwhile, Iran has condemned Israel's recent attack on Syria, calling it an attempt by the main supporter of Syrian terrorist groups to retaliate their many defeats against the government of Syrian President Bashar as-Assad.

"The Zionist regime's repeated attacks on Syrian soil under self-proclaimed, baseless pretexts amount to a blatant violation of Syria's sovereignty and goes against all international conventions," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said in an early Friday statement, according to Iran’s Press TV.

Damascus says Israel and its Western and regional allies are aiding Takfiri terrorist groups operating inside the Arab country, while the Tel Aviv regime's military carries out sporadic strikes against Syrian government forces.  The Israeli regime has reportedly even set up field hospitals to treat wounded militants evacuated from Syria.

Furthermore, the Syrian army has repeatedly seized huge quantities of Israeli-made weapons and advanced military equipment from the foreign-backed militants inside Syria, according to Press TV.