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Israel says kills four militants in Syrian Golan strike
A Canadian member of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) looks through binoculars at Mount Bental, an observation post in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights near the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria, August 21, 2015. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Baz Ratner
21/08/2015
AMMAN/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel said it killed four Palestinian militants in an air strike on the Syrian Golan Heights on Friday, after cross-border rocket fire from Syria prompted the heaviest Israeli bombardment since the start of Syria's four-year-old civil war.
An Israeli defence official said the four people killed in Friday's air strike were Palestinian militants from the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad. "We know of at least four of them who were killed," the official said.
A Syrian army source said the strike, at 10.30 am (0730 GMT), hit a car in a village in the Syrian Golan Heights, killing five civilians. State television quoted the source as saying it took place near Quneitra, close to the Israeli-occupied section of the Golan region.
Friday's attack came after Israel launched heavy overnight strikes against Syrian army posts in the border area in retaliation for what Israel said were rockets fired from Syria into Israel by Islamic Jihad.
The rocket fire into Israel set off fires but caused no casualties. Islamic Jihad denied it was involved.
The overnight Israeli bombardment killed one Syrian soldier killed and wounded seven, the Syrian military source.
(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; writing by Dominic Evans; editing by John Stonestreet)
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