New fighting in the Golan Heights led Israel to evacuate civilians Wednesday from the town of Mount Hermon.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that his country is prepared to respond to attacks in the region.
Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group supported by the Syrian regime, claimed responsibility for firing an anti-tank missile on an Israeli military vehicle in Har Dov, at the intersection of the Lebanese-Syrian border and the Golan Heights. The Israel Defense Forces said several people were injured.
Mortar fire was also aimed at several locations in Mount Hermon and Har Dov, and mortars hit a military position on Mount Hermon, the Israeli military said.
Hezbollah is suspected to have been involved in a rocket attack into the Golan Heights on Tuesday. Israel responded with artillery fire.
Overnight, the military launched airstrikes against several Syrian targets in response to Hezbollah rocket fire from Syrian bases, IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told CNN. “We did this to send a message to the Syrian regime that we view it responsible for what occurs on its territory and that there is a price to pay for allowing Hezbollah to use your positions,” Lerner said.
“If the Syrians think they are going to open up a new front on the Golan after 40 years, we are not willing to accept that.”
The Golan Heights were part of Syria until the 1967 war, and have since been under Israeli control.
At a ceremony in the southern Israel city of Sderot, Netanyahu said Wednesday, “At this moment, the IDF is responding to events in the north. To everyone who is trying to challenge us at the northern border, I recommend that they look what happened not far away from the city of Sderot, in Gaza: Hamas took its hardest hit since its formation. And the IDF is prepared to act strongly on all fronts.”
Netanyahu’s office blamed Iran for “this heinous terror attack,” and linked the violence to the ongoing disputes over Iran’s nuclear activities.
Iran supports the Syrian regime and Hezbollah.
“We must not provide terrorism with a nuclear umbrella. We must not let the most dangerous regime in the world have the most dangerous weapon in the world,” Netanyahu’s office said.
Iran insists it seeks only peaceful nuclear energy.
U.N. peacekeepers pulled out of the Golan Heights in September after Islamic militants took some peacekeepers hostage and Syrian rebel fighters took control of the border crossing between Israel and Syria in the Syrian town of Quneitra.
There has been intermittent weapons fire from Syria into the Golan Heights — both targeted and errant, the Israeli military contends — as the Syrian civil war has raged.
More than a week ago, Iranian semiofficial media reported that an Israeli airstrike killed six Hezbollah members and a senior Iranian commander around Quneitra. Iran, like Hezbollah, supports the Syrian regime. The Israeli military refused to comment about the January 18 strike.
Hamas said Wednesday it “reaffirms Hezbollah’s right to respond to the Israeli aggression, especially following the attack in Quneitra.”
Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks. It is blamed for a 1983 bombing that killed 241 U.S. service personnel at a Marine compound in Beirut, Lebanon, the deadliest attack against U.S. Marines since the World War II battle over Iwo Jima.