The Israeli Air Force launched retaliatory air strikes on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights overnight Sunday-Monday, confirming direct hits on nine army positions belonging to the Assad regime — including a regional command center – after a 15-year-old boy was killed earlier Sunday in an attack on the Israeli side.
“The IDF targeted nine Syrian army positions in response to the earlier attack that originated in Syria killing an Israeli teenager and injuring two other Israeli civilians. The targeted sites include Syrian [regional] military headquarters and launching positions,” the IDF said in a statement.
Citizens in northern Israel reported hearing large explosions shortly after midnight, according to Israeli news source Ynet
IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said Sunday’s deadly attack on a car in the Golan Heights, which killed a Mohammed Karkara and injured three others, was “an unprovoked act of aggression against Israel, and a direct continuation to recent attacks that occurred in the area.”
Military officials said the car was hit by anti-tank fire from an area under the control of Assad regime forces, though one rebel commander told the Times of Israel it was possible the regime had targeted the car with a heat-seeking missile. In response, Israeli tanks fired at Syrian army positions.
“The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to breach Israel’s sovereignty and will act in order to safeguard the civilians of the State of Israel,” Lerner said.
“Israel’s enemies are using every means, they don’t hesitate to attack civilians or kill children, as happened this morning,” Netanyahu said at a Jewish media conference in Jerusalem. “They don’t differentiate between the Jewish and non-Jewish citizens of Israel. As a people, our heart breaks at the kidnap of every child, at the killing of every child and I am sure that I speak for all of you when sending our condolences to the grieving family.”
Israeli warplanes bombed a series of targets inside Syria early Monday, the Israeli military said, in response to a cross-border attack that killed an Israeli teenager the previous day.
In all, Israel said it struck nine military targets inside Syria, and "direct hits were confirmed." The targets were located near the site of Sunday's violence in the Golan Heights and included a regional military command center and unspecified "launching positions." There was no immediate response from Syria.
In Sunday's attack, an Israeli civilian vehicle was struck by forces in Syria as it drove in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. A teenage boy was killed and two other people were wounded in the first deadly incident along the volatile Israeli-Syrian front since Syria's civil war erupted more than three years ago. The Israeli vehicle was delivering water as it was doing contract work for Israel's Defense Ministry when it was struck.
"Yesterday's attack was an unprovoked act of aggression against Israel, and a direct continuation to recent attacks that occurred in the area," said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman. He said the military "will not tolerate any attempt to breach Israel's sovereignty and will act in order to safeguard the civilians of the state of Israel."
The sudden burst of violence has added to the tense situation in Israel, where forces have spent the past week and half in a broad ground operation in the West Bank in search of three teenage boys believed to have been abducted by Hamas militants.
It was not immediately clear whether Syrian troops or one of the many rebel groups battling the government carried out Sunday's deadly attack in the Golan. But Lerner said it was clear that the attack was intentional. Israel has repeatedly said it holds the Syrian government responsible for any attacks emanating from its territory, regardless of who actually carries them out.
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