OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (Agencies)
The Israeli army said troops in the Golan Heights came under small arms fire from Syria on Sunday and that, although no one was hurt, it had complained to the United Nations force that monitors the frontier area.
The rare incident comes amid heightened alert in Israel along its northern border as the military offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip entered its third week.
"There were a number of bullets fired from Syria at an Israeli army force doing engineering work near the fence," an army spokesman said of the incident, which came amid an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip that has outraged many Arabs.
"No one was hurt but a vehicle was damaged," the spokesman added. "Forces in the field are examining the incident and a complaint was sent to UNDOF which sent a team there. The circumstances of the incident are still unclear."
There was no immediate comment from Syria or from UNDOF, the U.N. force which monitors a usually quiet ceasefire line between Israeli forces on the Golan Heights and Syrian troops.
Israel captured the plateau from Syria in a war in 1967 and later annexed it in a move not recognized internationally.
Syria wants the land back and had begun Turkish-mediated indirect peace talks with Israel last year, the closest contact the two sides had had since 2000. Syria said it broke off the talks after Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip on Dec. 27. |
