Israel’s military said on Saturday that its troops were assisting UN peacekeepers in the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights in repelling attacks by “armed individuals”.
“A short time ago, an attack was carried out by armed individuals on a UN checkpoint in the Hader area of Syria,” the army said in a statement, referring to the town on the edge of the UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan. Heights.
“(The Israeli army) is currently assisting the UN forces in repelling the attack.”
The UN forces had no immediate comment.
Earlier on Saturday, Syrian rebels took control of the provincial capital of Quneitra about 12 kilometers (eight miles) south of Hader, the British war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Syria’s long-stalled civil war reignited late last month, with rebels rampaging across the country and capturing several major cities.
The army said army chief Herzi Halevi visited the Syrian border on Saturday and said his country was “not intervening in events in Syria” but was “working to thwart and prevent threats in that area”.
The military declined to comment on Saturday evening when asked if an attack was underway.
The Israeli military said on Friday that it was “reinforcing air and ground forces” in parts of the Golan occupied by Israel in response to the situation in Syria. And on Saturday, he announced that he had conducted exercises to ensure the readiness of the troops.
Israel captured most of the Golan Heights during the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed the territory in a move never recognized by the international community as a whole.
The UN peacekeeping force, UNDOF, has been patrolling the buffer zone between the areas controlled by Israel and Syria since 1974.
In August 2014, Islamist rebels attacked UNDOF and took more than 40 Fijian peacekeepers hostage, holding them captive for almost two weeks.
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