Israel returns fire at Syria as a warning

JERUSALEM — Israel was drawn into the fighting in neighboring Syria for the first time Sunday, firing warning shots across the border after an errant mortar shell landed near an Israeli military installation in the Golan Heights.

While Israel appeared eager to calm the situation, its response was a potent reminder of how easily the Syrian civil war - already spilling across borders with Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan - could grow into a wider regional conflagration.

Israeli officials threatened even tougher retaliation if attacks persist.

They have feared that the instability in Syria over the past 19 months could spill across the border, particularly as President Bashar Assad’s grip on power grows increasingly precarious.

Israel has little love for Assad, who has provided refuge and support to Israel’s bitterest enemies through the years. But the Syrian leader - and his father before him - have kept the frontier quiet for nearly four decades, providing a rare source of stability in the volatile region.

The Israeli military said the mortar fire caused no injuries or damage at the post in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and then annexed.

In recent weeks, incidents of errant fire from Syria have multiplied, leading Israel to warn that it holds Syria responsible. Israeli officials believe most of the fire has come from Syrian government forces, although they think it has been inadvertent and was not aimed at Israel.

After responding to Sunday’s mortar strike, the Israeli military moved quickly to defuse tensions.

“We understand this was a mistake and was not meant to target Israel, and then that is why we fired a warning shot in retaliation,” said Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a military spokesman. Defense officials said an anti-tank missile was fired, and there were no reports of casualties in Syria.

The Israeli military also said it filed a complaint through United Nations forces operating in the area, stating that “fire emanating from Syria into Israel will not be tolerated and shall be responded to with severity.”

Israeli defense officials said the incident was not considered a serious military threat, but Israel felt the need to respond in order to set clear limits for the Syrians.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israeli defense forces have been instructed “to prevent the battles from spilling over into our territory.”

“Additional shelling into Israel from Syria will elicit a tougher response; exacting a higher price from Syria,” Barak said.

Nineteen months of fighting and the mounting chaos engulfing the Assad regime have already shaken the region. In new violence Sunday, Syrian army forces backed by helicopter gunships and artillery attacked a border area with Turkey after rebels captured a crossing point, activists said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based activist group, said the Ras al-Ayn border area in Syria’s northeast was “under siege” as dozens of rebels tried to hold onto the border crossing.

The entry of Israel into the fighting would take the violence to a new level. Although Israel has a more powerful military, both countries have air forces and significant arsenals of tanks, missiles and other weapons. Israel is especially concerned about Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons.

An Israeli war on Syria could also draw in Syria’s ally, Hezbollah, further destabilizing the region. Hezbollah, which possesses tens of thousands of rockets and missiles, battled Israel to a stalemate during a month-long war in 2006.

The Israeli air force has repeatedly demonstrated its superiority over Assad’s outdated military, buzzing his residence in one famous instance to protest attacks by Syrian-backed militants and carrying out an airstrike on what the U.S. later said was an unfinished nuclear reactor.

Israel worries the fall of Assad could have a range of grave consequences.

Officials have repeatedly warned that Assad may attack Israel in a final act of desperation if he fears his days are numbered. Israel also fears Syria could fall into the hands of Islamic extremists or descend into sectarian warfare.

Another lingering fear is that Syria’s chemical weapons and missiles could fall into the hands of its Lebanese ally, the Hezbollah guerrilla group, or other anti-Israel militants if Assad loses power. There are also concerns that Syria could become a staging ground for attacks by al-Qaida-linked groups battling Assad.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet that Israel is “closely monitoring” the border withSyria and is “ready for any development.”

The violence in Syria has killed more than 36,000 people in the uprising that began in March 2011. Hundreds of thousands have fled the fighting into neighboring Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. Another 11,000 escaped Friday into Turkey after the surge of fighting at Ras al-Ayn.

Ismail Aslan, the mayor of the nearby Turkish town of Ceylanpinar, said the number of refugees had slowed significantly Sunday. But Turkish soldiers at the border turned back some of the refugees who had arrived late last week and wanted to return to Ras al-Ayn, saying the area was not secure.

Activists reported clashes and shelling in different parts of Syria, killing almost 60 people, nearly two-thirds of them civilians.

The violence spread in most provinces around the country from Diaraa and Quneitra in the south to Idlib and Aleppo in the north to Homs and Hama in the center and Deir el-Zour in the east.

There also was fighting in Damascus and its suburbs, mostly in the capital’s southern neighborhood of Tadamon.

In Qatar, Syrian activists said anti-government groups had reached a preliminary deal to form a new opposition leadership under pressure from the international community.

Ali Sadr el-Din Bayanouni, a former Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader, said a broad agreement has been struck among the opposition factionsto form a new group called the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces.

Meanwhile, the latest violence in southern Israel was ignited Saturday when Palestinian militants fired an antitank missile at an Israeli patrol along the Gaza Strip border fence, wounding four soldiers, one seriously, the Israeli army said in an e-mailed statement. The Israeli military responded with tank shelling and several air strikes into Gaza, including a direct hit on one rocket launching squad, killing six and wounding more than 30, according to Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman for the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.

“The world needs to understand that Israel will not sit idly by in the face of attempts to attack us. We are prepared to intensify the response,” Netanyahu said in reference to the Gaza violence, according to an e-mailed statement from his office.

At least 65 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel in the past two days, damaging a number of buildings and injuring three people lightly, said Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman.

The Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said in a statement it took responsibility for the attack on the Israeli patrol. The group is one of several Palestinian militant groups in Gaza that operate independently of Hamas. Israel says it holds Hamas responsible for all attacks from Gaza.

Information for this article was contributed by Josef Federman, Lauren E. Bohn, Jamal Halaby, Bassem Mroue, Mehmet Guzel and Abdullah Rebhy of The Associated Press; and by Calev Ben-David, Saud Abu Ramadan, Gwen Ackerman and Jonathan Ferziger of Bloomberg News.