JERUSALEM: Israel said it carried out an air raid Friday that killed up to five Iran-backed militants it said were behind a rare rocket attack from across the border in Syria.
The strike came a day after Israel launched a dozen air raids on the Syrian-side of the occupied Golan Heights, raising concerns about a possible escalation.
Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said Friday's raid hit members of a unit behind Thursday's rocket fire on the northern Galilee region and the zone Israel occupies on the Golan.
"Elimination of the squad which fired at Israel yesterday is further proof that we shall not tolerate any attempt to disrupt the lives of Israeli citizens or harm their security," Yaalon said in a statement.
"Those who want to do so should know that the Israeli military and security forces will pursue them to the end and get our hands on them, anytime and anywhere."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that it was his government's policy to "hurt anybody who tries to hurt us".
"We have no wish to escalate events but we are sticking by our policy," he said in a statement.
"The Israel Defence Forces hit the squad that carried out the fire and the Syrian forces which allowed it."
Syrian state television said five unarmed civilians were killed in Friday'sraids, while an Israeli military source said "four or five" died in the strikes.
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Each side gave a different account of who was killed.
Syrian television identified them as unarmed civilians, the Israeli military source said they were members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group spoke of pro-regime National Defence Forces.
Israel earlier said that it hit 14 Syrian army positions in the Syrian-controlled sector of the Golan on Thursday night in response to the rocket attacks.
Previous cross-border fire has frequently been attributed to spillover from fighting inside Syria and to Islamist rebels holding ground close to the Israeli-held sector of the strategic plateau.
There has not been rocket fire from Syria at the Galilee for a long time, perhaps since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war known in Israel as Yom Kippur, Israeli media reported.
AFP
