BICOM

Israeli soldiers on the border with Syria returned fire at a suspected Syrian army position yesterday, after small arms fire was directed towards them.

The IDF said it believed this was stray fire emanating from intense fighting in the area between President Assad’s troops and opposition forces seeking his downfall. However, the IDF unit near the Quneitra border crossing returned fire; it was unclear whether Syrian forces had sustained any casualties. An IDF statement said, “Gunfire was opened from Syria towards IDF soldiers in the central Golan Heights. The force retaliated towards the threat and a hit was confirmed.”

Earlier in the day, a Syrian mortar shell landed in the Druze village of Majdal Shams, situated on the Golan Heights near the Syrian border. However, no injuries were reported and the shell was thought to have landed near the border fence.

Yesterday’s incidents were the latest over the past few months in which mortar and gunfire from fighting in Syria have landed on Israeli territory with some regularity. The Israeli military has often determined errant Syrian fire to be unintentional. In October, two Israeli soldiers were wounded when mortar fire struck a military outpost, prompting the IDF to return fire. In July, an IDF border patrol came under fire while a month previously fighting between Syrian government and opposition forces reached Quneitra, just dozens of metres from Israeli military positions.

Meanwhile, with the Syrian Civil War still raging, Navi Pillay, the head of the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights yesterday announced that an inquiry had concluded for the first time that “massive evidence” exists that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is personally responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.