Damascus on Friday accused Israel of a “criminal attack” after an Israeli airstrike killed 13 people in southern Syria.
Israel claimed that during an operation to detain suspects belonging to Jama’a Islamiya – a Lebanese Sunni Islamist group – its troops came under fire in the village of Beit Jinn, in which six soldiers were wounded, three of them seriously, Reuters reported.
The Israeli military further said the group fired rockets at Israel from Lebanon during the Gaza war and accused them of participating in “terrorist plots”.
The Israeli military also accused them of planting improvised explosive devices and “planning future attacks on Israel, including rocket fire.”
It called the raid part of routine operations in the area in recent months and claimed that “armed terrorists” fired on its troops and they returned fire “along with air support”.
Israel will not allow ‘terrorism and terrorist elements to settle on our borders,’ said Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee.
He added that three people suspected of “participating in terrorist plans” were arrested on Friday.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry said the Israeli attack killed more than 10 civilians, including women and children, damaged property and forced residents to flee their homes.
Walid Akasha, a local official in Beit Jinn, denied that there were any terrorist factions.
“We are peaceful, civilian residents, farmers. We have a legitimate right to defend ourselves. We did not attack them first – they came to our land,” Walid Akasha told Reuters by phone.
Akasha said seven people had been taken from the village in an earlier raid in June, and had not been heard from since. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the June arrest.
Israel moved troops and military equipment beyond the 1974 buffer zone into southern Syria, including the strategic vantage point of Mount Hermon.
