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Israel attacks Syrian post after stray shell crosses border
Smoke from explosions rises during fighting in the village of Jubata Al Khashab in Syria, as seen from the Israeli side of the border fence between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, September 11, 2016. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Baz Ratner
11/09/2016
JERUSALEM/AMMAN (Reuters) - Israeli aircraft attacked a Syrian artillery post on Saturday after a stray shell from fighting in Syria's civil war landed inside the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Israel's military said.
The shell landed just across the border, causing no injuries, and in retaliation the air force targeted "artillery positions of the Syrian regime", the military said.
The Israeli military has responded similarly in the past when mortar fire from Syria's war has landed in the Golan, territory that Israel captured from Syria in a 1967 war.
Syrian state television quoted a Syrian military source as saying the Israeli strike was aimed at helping an offensive by hardline Islamist rebels who had launched an offensive against Syrian troops.
Israel has largely stayed on the sidelines of Syria's civil war, keeping watch over the Golan Heights frontier and occasionally carrying out air strikes or returning mortar fire if there is a specific threat.
(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch and Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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