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Israel targets Syrian army posts after Golan Heights hit by rockets

Golan Heights has been tense since the start of the Syrian war, with stray rockets hitting the Israeli side
A picture taken from Buqaata in the Israeli-annexed Syrian Golan Heights shows smoke ascending from alleged shelling by Syrian government forces on IS positions on 6 October 2015 (AFP)
By AFP

Israeli artillery targeted Syrian army posts on Tuesday after two rockets fired from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied section of the Golan Heights, Israel's army said.

"In response to the rocket fire, IDF artillery targeted two military posts of the Syrian Armed Forces in the central Syrian Golan Heights," an army statement said.

The statement did not specify if the posts were hit.

Since the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011, the Golan has been tense, with an increasing number of mostly stray rockets and mortar rounds hitting the Israeli side, prompting the occasional armed response, AFP reported.

Israel had earlier said that two "stray" rockets hit the area of the Golan Heights it controls, without causing casualties or damage.

They were probably "stray fire from internal fighting in Syria," the army said.

Israel said it held Syria's army responsible for the "blatant breach of Israeli sovereignty," warning it would not tolerate rockets fired across the border, "intentional or not".

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres of the plateau in the Six Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.

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