Israel said it killed at least five Palestinians in an air strike on the Syrian Golan Heights on Friday, after cross-border rocket fire from there saw the heaviest Israeli bombardment since the start of Syria’s four-year-old civil war.
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At least one person was killed by Israeli air strikes in Syria following the firing of rockets into the Golan Heights and the Galilee.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, concerned over the serious violations of the Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Israel and Syria, has urged them to de-escalate the situation, an official statement said on Saturday. Little damage was caused by the rockets and there were no injuries reported.
Israel has accused Iran of involvement in a rocket attack from Syria that set off a series of Israeli artillery and airstrikes in Syrian territory, including a strike Friday on a vehicle that killed those inside.
He said the group targeted was “part of the (Palestinian militant group) Islamic Jihad in Syria, acting under the supervision of Iran”.
Tel Aviv’s warplanes have bombed an area in Syria’s southwestern province of Quneitra after the regime’s military claimed four rockets fired from the Syrian soil hit northern Israel.
Israel’s foreign ministry said on Friday that the Islamic Jihad force behind Thursday’s rocket fire was under the operational command of an officer of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Meanwhile, Daoud Shihab, the spokesperson of the Islamic Jihad, said the Israeli regime seeks to pave the ground for a new aggression by making such allegations against Damascus and the Palestinian resistance movement.
“We had nothing to do with launching any rockets at Galilee, and the enemy knows how and where al-Quds Brigades respond when we decide”, the statement said, referring to the Islamic Jihad’s armed wing.
Thursday’s exchanges came two days after Mr Netanyahu and Moshe Ya’alon, the Israeli defence minister, visited Israel’s northern border region to emphasise the threats the country faced there.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the nation’s struggle, stated the 5 lifeless have been members of the pro-government Nationwide Protection Forces.
“Iran sponsored these attacks”. “Syrian government is responsible for attacks emanating from Syria”.
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“We hope that the other side understands that it’s not worth escalating the conflict”, said the military official.
