BEIRUT: Israeli warplanes bombed the Syrian military headquarters and a number of other targets inside Syria, the Israeli military said Monday, in a blistering response to a mortar fire that left an Israeli-Arab teenager dead the previous day.
It was not immediately clear who fired the mortar shell towards Golan.
In all, Israel said it struck nine military targets inside Syria. The strikes were carried out shortly after midnight. Nine targets belonging to the Syrian military were hit, among them command centers, according to a statement released by the IDF Spokesman. ” There was no immediate response from Syria.
Haaretz newspaper quoting an IDF officer reported the strikes were carried out using both Tamuz guided missiles and IDF jets.
On Sunday, an Israeli civilian vehicle was struck by a mortar shell from war ravaged Syria as it drove in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. A teenage boy Muhammad Fahmi Krakara was sitting in a truck with his father, who was doing maintenance work on the fence for the Defense Ministry along was killed and two other people were slightly wounded in the incident.
In a swift response Israeli tanks fired at positions held by Syrian government forces.
Israel has carefully monitored the fighting in Syria, but has generally kept its distance and avoided taking sides. On several occasions, mortar shells and other types of fire have landed on the Israeli side of the de facto border, drawing limited Israeli reprisals. Israel is also believed to have carried out several airstrikes on arms shipments it believed to be headed from Syria to Hezbollah militants in neighboring Lebanon. But never before has Israel gone after a target like the Syrian military headquarters.
Sundays attack marked the most serious escalation along the ceasefire line with Syria since the 1973 Middle East War, with Israels defence minister warning Damascus would pay a high price for helping militants bent on harming the Jewish state.
The targeted sites include Syrian military headquarters and launching positions, and direct hits were confirmed, said the statement by Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, the armys foreign press spokesman.
Lerner said the army was not certain if it was an explosive device, a rocket or a mortar that hit the car, noting there was a hole in the nearby fence.
Yesterdays attack was an unprovoked act of aggression against Israel The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to breach Israels sovereignty and will act in order to safeguard the civilians of the State of Israel, Lerner stressed.
The army spokesman told reporters that Israeli tanks had fired at Syrian army posts shortly after the attack from Syria.
It was not clear whether there were any casualties on the Syrian side.
Residents in northern Israel heard explosions from the Syrian side of the border, the Israeli news site Ynet reported.
Syria is the only Arab country still technically at war with Israel, which seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights during the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.
Since the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011, the plateau has been tense, with a growing number of projectiles, mostly stray, hitting the Israeli side and prompting occasional armed responses.
Over the past year, Israel has reportedly carried out a series of raids on Syrian and Hezbollah targets, but has not officially acknowledged doing so.
In March, Israeli warplanes attacked Syrian army positions just hours after a bomb wounded four Israeli soldiers on the Golan.
On Sunday, an Israel Defense Forces officer said it was not known whether Syrian government forces or rebels fired the anti-tank missile, though the segment of the border fence where it landed is under rebel control.
However he said Israel holds the Syrian government responsible for any attacks on that border, whether they come from rebels or the government.
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