JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s Air Force retaliated for a Syrian attack that killed an Israeli teenager with strikes on targets that included Syrian military headquarters.
Rocket-launching sites also were among the nine military targets hit in the early Monday morning airstrikes, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that four people were killed and nine injured, and that the attacks seriously damaged Syrian military positions.
“The Assad regime now sees that it is responsible for the area under its control,” Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said Monday following the strikes in reference to Syrian President Bashar Assad. “We will respond aggressively and harshly against any provocation and violation of our sovereignty.”
Yaalon also expressed his condolences for the death of Mohammed Karaka, 13, who was killed a day earlier when explosives fired from inside Syria struck the vehicle in which he was traveling in the Golan Heights near the border with Syria. Two others were injured in the attack.
The Israeli military believes the attack on the vehicle, carrying civil employees of the military working to strengthen the border fence, was intentional and not fallout from Syria’s three-year long civil war.
In March, the Israeli army bombed Syrian military targets after four soldiers were injured in a roadside bomb attack. Earlier this month, the Iron Dome anti-missile system discharged after two mortars from Syria were fired at Israel.
In the past several months, several explosives from Syria have landed in northern Israel as a result of spillover from the civil war.
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