Israel forces were on heightened alert on Monday along the northern border with Syria after the military reported thwarting an attack by armed militants and retaliating with airstrikes.
Details about the late Sunday incident were not immediately clear, but unrest from Syria’s civil war has occasionally spilled over into the heavily guarder border zone near the Israeli-held Golan Heights.
Arab media have run stories on at least three separate airstrikes allegedly carried out by Israel against Hezbollah and Syrian army targets in recent days.
Israel said its aircraft responded to Sunday’s attempted infiltration with airstrikes, but did not confirm casualties or suggest who was behind the attack. Israeli media said four men were killed in the foiled attack.
A statement from the Israeli army Sunday said its forces had come across “a group of armed terrorists who had approached the border with an explosive device intended to be detonated against [Israeli] soldiers.”
Amos Gilad, director of the political security staff in the Defense Ministry, told state radio that it was too early to determine who was behind the attack, but that “Israel’s response is usually strong and sharp, strengthening its deterrence.”
“Any attempt to hurt our soldiers or civilians will be met with a firm response, such as the [military] operation tonight that foiled an attempted terror attack,” wrote Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Twitter post.
Following the border incident, Arab media reported that Israel had attacked Hezbollah and Syrian army sites north of Damascus, the Syrian capital. The , however, blaming instead the ongoing civil war inside Syria between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and various rebel factions.
Sunday’s border incident and the overnight airstrike follow additional claims over the weekend that Israeli military jets had targeted Syrian army and Hezbollah weapons stocks in the area of the Qalamoun Mountains, inside Syria. Al-Jazeera reported that the of the Syrian army believed to be in possession of strategic weapons and long-range missiles.
“There is a question mark over all these incidents but, on the surface it does seem to follow a pattern that we have become used to over the past two years with Israel using its air power to prevent the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah,” said Jonathan Spyer, director of the Rubin Center, a think tank at Israel’s Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, in an interview.
While Israel officially denied any connection to the air strikes inside Syria, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon told a forum in Tel Aviv on Sunday night that Israel “would not allow quality arms to be transferred to Hezbollah.”
He accused Iran and its proxy Hezbollah of trying to establish “a terrorist infrastructure along our border with Syria.”
During the four years of civil war in Syria, there have been at least eight separate unconfirmed reports of Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah weapons consignments. Hezbollah has been heavily involved in the fighting in Syria, supporting Assad’s regime.
In January, tensions between Israel and Hezbollah were running high after at the group's vehicles traveling in a Syrian-controlled portion of the Golan Heights. Six Hezbollah fighters were killed, as well as a senior Iranian military commander.
Israel and Hezbollah fought a three-week war in the summer of 2006. Recent Israeli military assessments suggest Hezbollah still poses even though the militant group is involved in the Syrian conflict.
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