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JERUSALEM — A youth was killed and two men were wounded in an attack on an Israeli defense contractor’s vehicle in the Golan Heights on Sunday morning, the first fatality on the Israeli side of the Syrian border since Syria’s civil war started more than three years ago.
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Monday that it had struck Syrian Army targets in response to an attack in the Golan Heights the day before that killed an Arab-Israeli teenager and wounded two others.
The identity of the dead youth, who officials said was 15, was not released, and it was unclear what he was doing in an Israeli water tanker operating near the fence along the disputed border. Some news reports suggested that, with school out for the summer, he had gone to work with his father, who was one of the two men wounded.
The killing of the youth, Mohammed Karaka, in an attack on an Israeli defense contractor’s vehicle was the first fatality on the Israeli side of the Syrian border since Syria’s civil war started more than three years ago.
The Israeli military responded immediately with tank fire on Syrian Army positions, though a spokesman acknowledged he did not know whether the attack stemmed from Syria or from rebels who he said have “an extensive presence” in the area.
An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, called it “an unprovoked act of aggression against Israel, and a direct continuation to recent attacks that occurred in the area.” He said in a statement that Israel had targeted nine Syrian Army positions, including a headquarters and launching positions. The extent of any damage or casualties was not clear.
“This was an intentional attack, this was not errant fire – they wanted to hit an Israeli vehicle,” the spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, told reporters in a briefing about an hour after the 11:30 a.m. attack. “This is the most substantial incident we’ve had on the border with Syria since the beginning of the civil war.”
Mohammed, who the authorities said was 14 but some news organizations said was 13, had spent the first day of summer vacation at work with his father, who was driving an Israeli water tanker near Tel Hazeka along the disputed border and was one of those hurt in the blast.
Colonel Lerner said he did not know whether an explosive device, rocket, mortar or tank fire was used in the attack, but said that “it was fired directly from east to west,” and that Israeli soldiers later found a hole in the border fence.
Colonel Lerner said that he did not know whether an explosive device, rocket, mortar round or tank fire was used, but that “it was fired directly from east to west,” and that Israeli soldiers later found a hole in the fence that demarcates the cease-fire line.
The Golan Heights attack came hours after two Palestinian men were fatally shot in confrontations with Israeli troops in the West Bank, bringing to four the number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s aggressive crackdown following the June 12 abduction of three teenage yeshiva students. A fifth Palestinian, who is 20, remained in critical condition in a Jerusalem hospital after being shot in the head Friday morning.
There have been several exchanges of fire in recent months in the Golan, which Israel captured from Syria in 1973 but much of the world considers illegally occupied territory. In March, Israel bombed Syrian positions after an explosive device wounded four Israeli soldiers patrolling the frontier, and two weeks before that, Israeli forces fired at two men they said were planting a bomb on the Syrian side.
Though Israel’s arrest campaign has slowed significantly, with 10 people detained overnight compared to 80 a week earlier, the violence around it has escalated. A Palestinian who entered Israel from the Gaza Strip with a hand grenade was caught early Friday, after a week of nightly rocket fire from Gaza into Israel and Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. Also, for the first time on Friday clashes occurred between Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority security forces, whose coordination with Israel in the search for the missing students is the source of deep tension.
Another soldier was wounded in October by shrapnel from mortar shells fired across the cease-fire line.
Witnesses reported that protesters smashed at least four Palestinian police cars in the West Bank city of Ramallah early Sunday. Palestinian news organizations said that activists also raided a police station in the central Al Manara Square around 5:30 a.m. after Israeli troops left the city, and that the Palestinian police fired live bullets in the air to disperse the crowds.
Eyal Ben-Reuven, a reserve major general in the Israel Defense Forces and former deputy of its northern command, described Sunday’s attack as “another step of deterioration” in the long-quiet area where he said “the sky is becoming cloudy.” General Ben-Reuven said that rebels were probably behind the attack, but that Israel nonetheless held President Bashar al-Assad of Syria responsible and had fired at his military to “tell them: you have to control your area and stop this terror organization acting against Israel.”
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority has stated repeatedly in recent days that his security forces are helping in Israel’s search for the three students, drawing intense criticism from many Palestinians and from the militant Islamic Hamas movement, which Israel blames for the abduction.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel spoke to the youth’s father, Fahmi Karaka, according to a statement from his office. “The enemies of the state of Israel are not ashamed to use any means, they are not ashamed to attack civilians and to kill children, as they have this morning,” Mr. Netanyahu said in the statement. “They do not distinguish between the Jewish citizens and the non-Jewish citizens.”
While Israel’s search has been concentrated around Hebron, the West Bank’s largest city and the region from where the yeshiva students disappeared as they tried to hitchhike home, Sunday morning’s killings happened miles away, in Ramallah and Nablus.
The father, who was hospitalized, told the Israeli news site Ynet that Mohammed had wanted to be a doctor. “He was very happy when I agreed to take him with me today, and now this joy has turned into a tragedy,” Mr. Karaka said. “I don’t want to go back to work,” he added. “I can only hope that something like this will never happen to any family, because no one can deal with this type of death.”
Palestinian health officials said that Ahmad Said Saoud Khaled, 27, bled to death after being shot in the abdomen, back and thigh by Israeli troops he encountered while en route to a Nablus mosque for dawn prayer. In a separate incident, Muhammad Mahmoud Atta Ismail, 31, was slain on a Ramallah rooftop at dawn by an Israeli sniper on top of another building, according to an emergency-room doctor.
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, called urgently for the international community to intervene, warning that “this dangerous escalation may lead to dramatic consequences for the entire region.”
“The world cannot stand by while Israel, the occupying power, commits such grave breaches of international law,” Ms. Ashrawi said in a statement. “The international community must pressure Israel to stop at once its military operation,” she added, and release the 340 people arrested in recent days, many of them Hamas-affiliated lawmakers and former ministers.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel acknowledged Sunday that the ongoing operation “entails a certain friction” with West Bank residents.
“We have no intention of deliberately harming anyone, but our forces are acting as necessary for self-defense,” Mr. Netanyahu said at the start of Israel’s weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday. “From time to time there are victims or casualties on the Palestinian side as a result of the self-defense actions of our soldiers.”
Mr. Netanyahu, who first declared Hamas responsible on Monday, but has faced criticism from Mr. Abbas and others for not providing evidence linking the group to the abduction, said on Sunday, “We have unequivocal proof.”
“We are sharing this proof and information to this effect with several countries,” he added. “Soon this information will be made public.”
