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....how does that line go...."thirty-ninth verse, same as the first"...
(Wall Street Journal) TEL AVIV—Tensions escalated along Israel’s northern border Tuesday after two rockets fired from Syria hit the Israeli-controlled section of the Golan Heights and the military launched a retaliatory strike.
The Israeli army spokesman’s office said no was one injured by the rocket attack from Syria. But an Israeli ski area at Mount Hermon was evacuated and residents in nearby villages were warned to remain near shelters for several hours after explosions were heard.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. The Israeli military blamed it on the Lebanese Shiite military and political group Hezbollah and the source of the fire came from Syrian army positions, a military official said. The Israeli military retaliated with 20 artillery shells, and identified hits.
The exchange of fire came a little more than a week after a suspected Israeli airstrike near Quneitra in the Syrian Golan Heights killed an Iranian general. Hezbollah said the attack also killed six of its fighters. Israel neither confirmed nor denied the military strike.
In the aftermath of the Jan. 18 attack, Iran threatened Israel with a harsh response but so far, there has been none. Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, said he would discuss the attack in a speech Friday.
The recent violence has led to a heightened state of alert on Israel’s borders with both Lebanon and Syria. Israel has sent reinforcements to the area, and Israeli media reported that residents along the Lebanese border were twice put on alert. In the wake of the Jan. 18 attack near Quneitra, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran of preparing an “active front” against Israel in the Golan, and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Hezbollah was establishing a presence there.
Despite the border tensions, the prevailing assessment among Israeli experts is that neither Hezbollah nor Iran seeks an all-out war with Israel. At the moment, they say, Hezbollah is preoccupied with bolstering the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Until an uprising erupted against the Syrian government in March 2011, the Golan Heights had encompassed one of Israel’s most stable borders. But fighting in the region has created a power vacuum and allowed the al Qaeda-linked rebel group Nusra Front and Hezbollah to gain a toehold in the area.
In past years, Israeli areas of the Golan have been hit as a result of the fighting in Syria, which Israel has blamed on errant fire, and has responde din very limited fashion.
Insurgents also took hostage a group of U.N. peacekeepers in late August in that area, releasing them two weeks later.