JERUSALEM – The Israeli military said it destroyed a machine-gun post in Syria on Sunday after two Israeli patrols came under fire from across the Israeli-Syrian cease-fire line in the Golan Heights, raising the specter of more spillover from Syria’s bloody civil war.
This was the second cross-border episode of its kind in the past few months and it came two days after President Obama helped patch up the broken relationship between Israel and Turkey, a move that Israeli officials said was largely born of the need to cooperate over the deteriorating situation in neighboring Syria.
After Sunday’s episode, Israel’s newly appointed defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, warned in a statement that “any violation of Israeli sovereignty and fire from the Syrian side will be answered with the silencing of the source of fire.” He added: “The Syrian regime is responsible for every breach of sovereignty. We will not allow the Syrian army or any other groups to violate Israel’s sovereignty in any way.”
Israel captured part of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that overlooks northern Israel, from Syria in the 1967 war and has since effectively annexed it in a move that has not been internationally recognized. The current disengagement line, established after the 1973 war, has been largely quiet for almost 40 years but is now growing increasingly volatile.
In November, Israeli tanks fired on Syrian artillery units after mortar shells crashed into the Israeli-held territory from Syria.
The military said that on Saturday night an army jeep came under fire from the Syrian side. The vehicle was damaged but none of the passengers were injured. On Sunday morning, another military patrol came under fire, again escaping without injury. Israeli forces fired back at the source, a machine-gun position, destroying it, according to the military. Israeli news media reports said the post was destroyed by a missile, but the military would not confirm those reports.
The military also did not specify whether the Syrian position belonged to Syrian government forces or rebels.
Israel says it is closely monitoring events in Syria and will not tolerate any transfer of the Syrian army’s chemical weapons or other strategic weapons to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite organization, and will not allow such weapons to fall into the hands of rebel groups. In late January, Israeli warplanes struck a target inside Syria that American officials said was a convoy carrying sophisticated antiaircraft weaponry that was intended for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
This month, Israel’s chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, said that a string of rebel enclaves on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights border were contributing to daily outbursts of fighting there.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military said that some its soldiers provided medical care to four wounded Syrians who approached the border fence. Two were treated at the scene and two who were more severely wounded were transferred to an Israeli hospital, the military said.
In a separate development early Sunday, 200 Israeli police officers removed about 40 Palestinian protesters from a strategic hillside in the West Bank where they had set up an encampment last week to demonstrate against Israeli settlement policies and what they said was Mr. Obama’s bias toward Israel.
This was the second cross-border episode of its kind in the past few months and it came two days after President Obama helped patch up the broken relationship between Israel and Turkey, a move that Israeli officials said was largely born of the need to cooperate over the deteriorating situation in neighboring Syria.
After Sunday’s episode, Israel’s newly appointed defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, warned in a statement that “any violation of Israeli sovereignty and fire from the Syrian side will be answered with the silencing of the source of fire.” He added: “The Syrian regime is responsible for every breach of sovereignty. We will not allow the Syrian army or any other groups to violate Israel’s sovereignty in any way.”
Israel captured part of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that overlooks northern Israel, from Syria in the 1967 war and has since effectively annexed it in a move that has not been internationally recognized. The current disengagement line, established after the 1973 war, has been largely quiet for almost 40 years but is now growing increasingly volatile.
In November, Israeli tanks fired on Syrian artillery units after mortar shells crashed into the Israeli-held territory from Syria.
The military said that on Saturday night an army jeep came under fire from the Syrian side. The vehicle was damaged but none of the passengers were injured. On Sunday morning, another military patrol came under fire, again escaping without injury. Israeli forces fired back at the source, a machine-gun position, destroying it, according to the military. Israeli news media reports said the post was destroyed by a missile, but the military would not confirm those reports.
The military also did not specify whether the Syrian position belonged to Syrian government forces or rebels.
Israel says it is closely monitoring events in Syria and will not tolerate any transfer of the Syrian army’s chemical weapons or other strategic weapons to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite organization, and will not allow such weapons to fall into the hands of rebel groups. In late January, Israeli warplanes struck a target inside Syria that American officials said was a convoy carrying sophisticated antiaircraft weaponry that was intended for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
This month, Israel’s chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, said that a string of rebel enclaves on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights border were contributing to daily outbursts of fighting there.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military said that some its soldiers provided medical care to four wounded Syrians who approached the border fence. Two were treated at the scene and two who were more severely wounded were transferred to an Israeli hospital, the military said.
In a separate development early Sunday, 200 Israeli police officers removed about 40 Palestinian protesters from a strategic hillside in the West Bank where they had set up an encampment last week to demonstrate against Israeli settlement policies and what they said was Mr. Obama’s bias toward Israel.