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 An Israeli defense official said the people killed in Friday's air
strike were Palestinian militants from the Iran-backed Islamic
Jihad. "We now know of five or six Palestinian Islamic Jihad
terrorists killed," the official said.
A Syrian army source said the strike, at 10.30 am (0730 GMT), hit a
car in a village in the Syrian Golan Heights, killing five
civilians. State television quoted the source as saying it took
place near Quneitra, close to the Israeli-occupied section of the
Golan region.
It followed heavy overnight strikes by Israel against Syrian army
posts in the border area in retaliation for what Israel said were
rockets fired from Syria by Islamic Jihad.
The rockets landed near an Israeli village, setting off fires but
causing no casualties.
Islamic Jihad denied it was involved.
 Asked to respond to Israel's account, senior Islamic Jihad official
Mohammad Al-Hindi stopped short of confirming members of the group
had been hit, telling reporters in Gaza: "If the reports are
corrent, Islamic Jihad knows how to defend its men."
Israel's overnight retaliation killed one Syrian soldier and wounded
seven, the Syrian army source said, although it appeared to be the
heaviest Israeli bombardment for years, with dozens of raids against
Syrian targets.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces
"struck the squad that carried out the firing and the Syrian forces
that enabled it to."
He also blamed Iran for ordering the rocket fire into Israel,
underlining Israel's concern that a nuclear deal between Tehran and
six world powers had emboldened the Islamic Republic.
"Those countries hastening to embrace Iran should know that an
Iranian commander gave sponsorship and instruction to the squad that
fired on Israel," he said in a statement.
FIRST BORDER SHELLING
A British-based monitor and defense experts who track Syria said the
Israeli raids on Thursday were the heaviest attacks on Syrian army
targets since the start of Syria's crisis in 2011.
 Israeli media said the overnight exchange was the first shelling of
Israeli targets from Syria since a 1973 Middle East war, and the
most intensive Israeli shelling of Syria since then as well.
Previous attacks have mainly targeted supply routes and arms depots
of Syrian President Bashar al Assad's Lebanese ally Hezbollah inside
Syria.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said the rocket fire from
Syria was a result of a more aggressive Iranian policy following the
nuclear deal signed between Tehran and the West, and he challenged
Tehran not to test "our determination".
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"What we’ve seen overnight is the prelude of things to come,
following the signing of the nuclear agreement and the lifting of
sanctions," Yaalon said. Israel, widely believed to hold the
region's only nuclear arsenal, resolutely opposes the nuclear
accord, saying Tehran is determined to acquire its own nuclear
weapons and will also now have more access to funds to spread its
influence in the region.
Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.
Separately, the Israeli army said its air and artillery strikes hit
14 Syrian military sites on the Syrian Golan.
Israel captured the western Golan in the 1967 Middle East war and
annexed it, a move not recognized internationally.
Lebanese Hezbollah's Manar television said the Israeli raids
targeted Brigade 90, one of the biggest Syrian army bases in the
country with several rockets
The Syrian army, which has been on a war footing with Israel for
decades, had deployed a substantial part of its land forces and
artillery in southern Syria and in the Golan Heights and built
elaborate defenses against Israel.
Rebel sources said at least 50 raids hit the main army outposts in
the region including an attack on the city of Baath, the
administrative capital of the Quneitra region.
Many parts of the Syrian Golan Heights have fallen under rebel
control, with groups including the Syrian al Qaeda offshoot, Nusra
Front, having a strong presence in the area.
A major Syrian offensive helped by Iran-backed Hezbollah to wrest
back territory had failed to make inroads.
(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Dan Williams in Jerusalem;
writing by Dominic Evans; editing by John Stonestreet)
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