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Rocket fire from Syria and Gaza early on Monday struck Israel in separate incidents, and has prompted the Israeli military to strike back. The events occurred just hours before the new Palestinian unity government took office in Ramallah. A few hours earlier, tensions spiked as the newly Palestinian government was formally unveiled at a ceremony at the Muqataa headquarters in Ramallah. In 2014, around 150 rockets have landed in Israel; the situation has, however, eased up in the fast few weeks.
In the early hours of Monday, Israeli warplanes conducted two bombings on targets in southern and central Gaza following rocket-fire in Southern Israel, a spokesman for the Israeli military said. “After two rockets were fired at Israeli territory over the last two days, the Israeli airforce attacked two terrorist sites in central and southern Gaza”, he said, adding that the raids were successful.
In the north, Israeli military fired across the Syrian border despite its ceasefire with Syria. A spokesman for the military said that Israeli troops fired into occupied Golan Heights after a projectile was launched on Israel.
Earlier this morning, a projectile fired from Syria exploded near an Israeli position on Mount Hermon”, he said, adding that Israeli troops responded with artillery fire, targeting the direction from which the projectile came.
According to army radio, three mortar shells were fired from Syria, and only one of them had landed in Israeli-held territory. Israel is at war with Syria; it seized Golan Heights during the Six-Day War in 1967. The international community does not recognize Golan Heights, and other land annexed by Israel, as Israeli territory. Ever since the Syrian conflict blew up in 2011, the Golan Heights plateau has been tense, and an increasing number of projectiles, most of them stray, struck the Israeli side, prompting the occasional armed response from Israel.
