Syrian artillery shell lands in Golan Heights
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E-mail Xinhua, February 28, 2013
A artillery shell that was shot from Syria landed in Israel near an open area near Alonei Habashan, an Israeli farming community in the central Golan Heights earlier Wednesday. No injuries or damage were reported in the incident.
Local media noted that Syrian military forces and armed insurgents were exchanging fire not far from the border at the time the dud landed inside Israel, speculating that it may have overshot its original target.
But it is premature to rule out the possibility that a Syrian artillery shell which landed in Israeli territory on Wednesday was intentionally fired by one of the warring parties across the border, said an Israeli military source.
"We cannot determine at this time whether this was errant or deliberate fire," the source told Xinhua hours after an artillery shell fell down.
Army forces were sent to comb the area after eyewitnesses reported seeing a mortar fired from across the border and then smoke billowing from a community adjacent to the border fence.
"The forces found unexploded ordnance, either a mortar or some kind of other shell, and engineers were called to dismantle it," said a military spokesman in Tel Aviv.
Last November, Israeli tanks directly engaged a Syrian artillery battery, for the first time since the 1973 war, after a mortar shell exploded meters from an army outpost. Israeli officials said the shell, as well as a number of shells that preceded it, were likely errant incidents.
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