JERUSALEM/DAMASCUS (Reuters) -Ten people were killed by Israeli fire in a village in southern Syria on Friday, Syrian state media reported, while the Israeli military said five soldiers were wounded in a clash during an operation to apprehend members of a militant group there.
Syrian state media reports suggested the Israeli raid in the Beit Jinn area had spiralled into one of the deadliest such incidents since President Bashar al-Assad was toppled a year ago. Israel has mounted regular incursions in southern Syria since then, citing goals that include keeping militants away from the frontier.
The Israeli military said its troops came under fire from militants during an overnight operation to detain suspects belonging to a group it identified as the Jaama Islamiya. It described the raid as part of routine operations in the area in recent months.
VIOLENT CLASHES
The Israeli troops responded with fire “along with aerial assistance”, the Israeli military said in a statement, adding that three of the wounded Israeli soldiers had severe injuries. “A number of terrorists were eliminated,” it said.
The Syrian state news agency SANA, citing the head of the health directorate in the Damascus countryside governorate, reported 10 people were killed and dozens more wounded as a result of the Israeli attack. The dead included two children, SANA reported earlier.
The Israeli forces had shelled Beit Jinn at 3:40 a.m. (0140 GMT) and Israeli troops had entered the village, SANA said. Residents confronted the Israeli forces, which responded, leading to “violent clashes”, it added.
Israeli forces arrested two people, the military and a local Syrian official said.
The Israeli military declined to offer further details about the militant group it said was targeted in the raid. It accused the suspects of military activity, including planting improvised-explosive devices, and “planning future attacks on Israel including rocket fire”.
ISRAEL SUSPICIOUS OF NEW GOVERNMENT
Israel has voiced deep suspicion of Syria’s new government led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al Qaeda commander, and has said it wants a demilitarized southern Syria.
Sharaa has said Syria does not pose a threat to any state in the region or the world.
Israel has intervened militarily several times with the declared aim of protecting members of Syria’s Druze minority, notably during violence in Sweida province in July that pitted Sunni Muslim Bedouin fighters and government forces against Druze fighters.
Israel, which frequently bombed Syria when it was ruled by Assad, stepped up its military operations in the country after he was ousted, moving troops and military equipment past a 1974 buffer zone and into southern Syria, including the strategic overlook point of Mount Hermon.
(Reporting by Tala Ramadan in Dubai, Maya Gebeily in Beirut, Kinda Makieh in Damascus and Alexander Cornwell and Pesha Magid in Jerusalem; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Alex Richardson)
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