For second time in two days apparent errant fire from civil war in Syria lands in Israeli territory.
The IDF stuck two targets belonging to the Syrian military on Sunday night in response to earlier projectile fallout from the embattled country exploding in Israeli territory in the northern Golan Heights.
IDF artillery forces struck the Syrian army posts located in the central Golan Heights.
“The IDF holds the Syrian military responsible for all events stemming from its territory and will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israel’s sovereignty and the safety of its residents,” the IDF said in a statement.
Earlier Sunday evening, a projectile fired from Syria exploded in an open area of the northern Golan Heights. The incident was thesecond case in two days of apparent errant fire from the civil war in Syria landing in Israeli territory.
There were no injuries or damages. The IDF has assessed that the projectile was an instance of stray fire from nearby internal Syrian civil war battles.
Warning sirens did not go off as the projectile exploded in an unpopulated area.
Commenting on the recent events in the north, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Syrian artillery gun positions taking part in civil war battles were behind the stray fire into Israel on Sunday and Saturday.
“From our perspective this is a violation of sovereignty and a crossing of a red line The State of Israel has no intention of ignoring such incidents, and the IDF therefore attacked two Syrian army artillery positions this evening,” Ya’alon said.
“We view the Syrian regime and its army as being responsible for what happens in their territory and we will not be tolerant in cases such as these,” the defense minister said.
Israel has sought to stay out of the Syrian civil war, seeing enemies on all sides. It says it intervenes militarily only when fired upon from Syria or to prevent Hezbollah operatives reinforcing Syrian President Bashar Assad there from gaining advanced weapons that could pose a threat to it from Lebanon in the future.
Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, Israel has occasionally fired across the Golan Heights in response to spillover shelling or bombed advanced arms it suspected were to be transferred to Assad’s Lebanese guerrilla allies, Hezbollah.
Indications of increased Russian involvement in Syria in support of President Bashar Assad are prompting a reassessment in Israel about how to handle fall-out from the conflict without risking a clash with Moscow.
As reported by The Jerusalem Post