Three Syrian mortar shells struck in and around an Israeli village on the Golan
Heights Thursday, marking a significant deterioration of security conditions
along the border.
One shell fell in between homes in Moshav Alonei
Habashan, but did not explode. Two more hit closer to the border.
“We
believe these are stray shells, fired in the midst of internal Syrian fighting,”
an IDF spokeswoman said.
No one was injured in the incident, which
follows other stray shootings, including Syrian bullets that struck an IDF jeep
on patrol last week.
Home Front Defense Minister Avi Dichter said Israel
needed “nerves of steel” to deal with the instability in Syria.
He added
that there was nowhere for Israel to respond, due to the chaos over the
border.
The incidents “require a level-headed response from Israeli
authorities,” Dichter said.
Most of Alon Habashan’s residents reacted
coolly to the shells, though some expressed anger over what they said was the government’s failure to protect them.
Amir Duvdevani,
who has helped handle security for the village in the past, told Channel 10 that
the government had not issued any safety instructions over how to respond to
Syrian fire.
The village had not been exposed to fire from the Syrian
border since 1974, he added.
Also on Thursday, gunfire from Syria wounded
two civilians, a woman and a young woman, in Turkey’s Hatay province, a Turkish
official said.
Stray bullets fired from the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain
struck the two Turks in the border town of Ceylanpinar, just across the border
from where Syrian rebels are fighting government forces.
Reuters
contributed to this report.