The Syrian defence ministry has said 36 people were killed and more than 50 wounded yesterday in Israeli air strikes on the oasis city of Palmyra, renowned for its ancient ruins. "The Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of the Al-Tanf area, targeting a number of buildings in the city of Palmyra," a ministry statement said. The attack "killed 36 people and wounded more than 50", as well as causing "significant material damage," it added. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Israeli strikes killed 41 people, many of them pro-Iran fighters from neighbouring Iraq. "Forty-one people have been killed, including seven pro-Iranian Syrian fighters and 22 non-Syrians, mostly Tehran-backed Iraqi members of the Al-Nujaba Brigades," the Britain-based war monitor said. State news agency SANA said the Israeli strike "targeted residential buildings and the industrial area" of the city. Since civil war erupted in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting the army and Iran-backed groups. The Israeli military has intensified its strikes since almost a year of hostilities with Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon escalated into all-out war in late September. Meanwhile, Hezbollah's leader delivered a defiant speech yesterday saying Israel cannot impose its conditions for a truce, as US envoy Amos Hochstein headed from Lebanon to Israel to try to end the war. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, in a near-simultaneous statement, said any ceasefire deal must ensure Israel has the "freedom to act" against Hezbollah. Hochstein announced in Lebanon that he would head to Israel to try to seal a ceasefire agreement in the war in Lebanon. Israel expanded the focus of its operations from Gaza to Lebanon, vowing to secure the north and allow tens of thousands of people displaced by the cross-border fire to return home. Qassem added that his armed group seeks a "complete and comprehensive end to the aggression" and "the preservation of Lebanon's sovereignty". He also vowed that the response to recent deadly Israeli strikes on Beirut would be on "central Tel Aviv", Israel's densely populated commercial hub. Before heading to Israel yesterday, Hochstein met for a second time with one of his main interlocutors, Hezbollah-allied parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who has led mediation efforts on behalf of the Iran-backed group. "The meeting today built on the meeting yesterday and made additional progress, so I will travel from here in a couple hours to Israel to try to bring this to a close if we can," Hochstein told reporters in the Lebanese capital. Hochstein had on Tuesday said an end to the war was "within our grasp", while a diplomat in Lebanon told AFP that he had studied some modifications to the US truce plan with Lebanese officials. Ahead of Hochstein's arrival, Israel's top diplomat Saar said: "In any agreement we will reach, we will need to keep the freedom to act if there will be violations." Striking a defiant tone, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told parliament on Monday that Israel would "be forced to ensure our security in the north".