JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli soldiers on patrol who came under fire from Syria hit a Syrian soldier with retaliatory fire, the Israeli military said.
The Israelis were patrolling Monday in the southern Golan Heights when they were fired on, the Israel Defense Forces said. It was unclear if the IDF unit was targeted or if the gunfire was spillover from the civil war in Syria.
Earlier Monday morning, a Syrian mortar shell landed in the Golan village of Majdal Shams. The explosive landed near a home in a village with some 10,000 Druze Arabs.
Dozens of mortar shells have landed on Israel’s side of the Golan since the start of the Syrian civil war in March 2011. Israel has filed complaints with the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force stationed on the Golan.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.