The IDF has confirmed that
Syrian rebels now control the Syrian side of the Quneitra border crossing with Israel on the Golan Heights after defeating Bashar al-Assad's troops on Thursday morning.
Israeli military sources told Army
Radio in recent weeks that a takeover of the Quneitra crossing by rebels
would constitute a major turning point in Jerusalem’s attitude toward
the conflict ravaging its neighbor to the northeast.
Earlier on
Thursday, a mortar shell landed at a United Nations base in Quneitra,
just a few hundred meters from the border fence separating Israel and
Syria, according to media reports Thursday.
Israel Radio reported
that soldiers loyal to Assad were engaged in fierce gun battles with
rebels near the border fence. The Israeli military has instructed
agrarians on the Golan Heights to keep away from the border fence area
near Quneitra.
In addition, authorities have banned civilians
from entering Kibbutz Ein Zivan, a communal settlement that lies
hundreds of meters away from the border fence, according to Israel
Radio.
Alex Shalom, an Israeli farmer from the Golan Heights, said he saw
heavy smoke rising from the crossing and Israeli military ambulances
evacuating people from the site.
An Israeli military spokeswoman
said the area leading to Quneitra had been closed off, but gave no other
details on the fighting.
Officials from the United Nations
Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which operates the base, could not
be reached for comment.
Despite the Israeli government's best efforts to keep out of this war, it's pretty likely that the IDF will react much more strongly to 'incidents' along the border with the rebels in control than it would have with Assad in control.
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