Israel Strikes Syria as War Spills Across Border

Syria’s civil war is increasingly involving the country’s neighbors.

This week, incidents of violence in neighboring Lebanon, to the west, and retaliatory strikes from Israel, to the south, sent worrying indications that the three-year conflict is implicating the broader region.

Israeli security forces hit several Syrian military targets before dawn on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring seven, just hours after a roadside bombing in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, on Syria’s southern border, wounded four Israeli soldiers.

Moshe Yaalon, Israel's defense minster, warned that the country would hold Bashar al-Assad's regime responsible for attacks from Syrian territory.

“If it continues to cooperate with terror elements who seek to harm Israel, we will make it pay a high price,” Yaalon said, referring to Assad's support from Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militia that is helping his government combat rebels in Syria, and which has long fought Israel. Israel suspects Hezbollah of carrying out Tuesday's attack in the Golan Heights.

Addressing his cabinet, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was characteristically blunt about Israel’s tolerance for such attacks.

“Our policy is very clear,” he said. “We hurt those who hurt us.”

On March 5, Israel shelled two Hezbollah members for reportedly trying to place a bomb near the Israeli-Syrian ceasefire line. It struck a Hezbollah target in Lebanon last Friday after a bomb targeted Israeli troops near its border.

The video below, shared by the prime minister’s office, shows Netanyahu meeting with the soldiers who were injured in the Golan Heights attack.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited four IDF soldiers injured in a roadside attack in the occupied Golan Heights.

Syria's military command issued a relatively feeble statement in response: “We warn that these desperate attempts to escalate and exacerbate the situation in these circumstances by repeating these acts of aggression would endanger the security and stability of the region.”

Meanwhile, the conflict is raising tensions in Lebanon, where fighting has continued to spill over from Syria — yet another reminder that Syria’s civil war has been increasingly difficult to contain within its borders.

A contentious Hezbollah blockade of the Lebanese border town of Arsal has incited protests across the country that have left at least one person dead. Arsal is a predominately Sunni village in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, which is mostly Shia, and the local population is sympathetic to opposition forces fighting to topple Assad — a combination that makes it a target several times over.

The blockade was imposed last weekend after Syrian and Hezbollah forces recaptured the Syrian town of Yabroud, driving Sunni rebels across the border to find refuge in Arsal. Earlier this month, Syrian jets fired missiles at Arsal's outskirts shortly before the Al Nusra Front launched grenades into the village from across the border in Syria.

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that Lebanese troops had reopened a main road into the village.

The videos below show Syrian rebels and civilians fleeing Yabroud, and the protests that followed Arsal’s blockade in Lebanon.

Syrian rebels and civilians fled the town of Yabroud ahead of its recapture by Syrian and Hezbollah forces.

Sunni Muslims in Tripoli protested Hezbollah's blockade of the predominately Sunni border town of Arsal.

Lebanese authorities have struggled to contain the fighting in neighboring Syria, as well as a massive influx of refugees fleeing the conflict.

Israel, for its part, will continue to watch the unraveling civil war on its northern border and intervene when necessary. The conflict hasn't yet ensnared it — but with no end in sight to a war entering its fourth year, that might be about to change.

Follow Alice Speri on Twitter: @alicesperi

Photo via Flickr