Journalists report from the damage of a medieval citadel after an Israeli airstrike in the capital city of Damascus. AP

Syria has urged the United Nations to take necessary measures to deter Israel's attacks and hold it accountable after a deadly Israeli missile attack on the Syrian capital Damascus.

An Israeli air strike killed early Sunday 15 people including two Syrian civilians and badly damaged a building in a Damascus district housing state security agencies, a war monitor said.

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The strike targeted a meeting that included Syrian regime officers and was "the deadliest Israeli attack in the Syrian capital" since the civil war began, said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Police officers stand on the rubble of a damaged building at the site of a rocket attack in Syria. Reuters

"When Syria was trying to heal its wounds, bury its martyrs, and receive condolences, sympathy, and international humanitarian support in the face of the devastating earthquake, the Israelis launched an air aggression targeting civilian-populated neighbourhoods," the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

There has been no comment from the Israeli authorities on the attack, Xinhua news agency reported.

Many residential buildings in Damascus and the city's countryside were damaged, it noted.

Syrians inspect the damage of a medieval citadel in central Damascus after an early morning Israeli airstrike. AP

According to local media reports, the missiles hit the upscale neighbourhood of Kafar Sousah, the historic citadel of Damascus, and the Al Mazraa area.

The observatory said the target in Kafar Sousah was an Iranian school, adding that the Israeli missile attack also targeted positions of the Iranian militia and the Lebanese Hezbollah group in the Sayyida Zainab area, as well as a military site in the southern Syrian province of Sweida.

The Israeli attack comes as Syria is still coping with the devastating earthquakes that struck the north of the country on February 6. The tremors have killed and injured thousands of people in the war-torn country.