ReutersAt least 13 people have been killed in an Israeli raid on a village in southern Syria overnight, state media reported, in one of the deadliest incidents of its kind for months. It said children were among the dead.
Sana news agency said residents of Beit Jinn “confronted” Israeli troops, leading to a firefight. Air strikes were also carried out. Syria’s foreign ministry condemned what it called a “war crime” by Israel.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said troops went into the village, on the edge of the occupied Golan Heights, to detain militants who it said “advanced terror attacks against Israeli civilians”.
Six Israeli soldiers were injured in the clashes, three seriously, it said.
The IDF said it targeted the Jamaa Islamiya militant group in Friday’s operation. It said that when the raid began, “several armed terrorists opened fire” on its soldiers, who fired back.
Sana said the village was also shelled. Footage released by the IDF shows two air strikes – one apparently on a group of people, and the other on a building. In bodycam footage also released by the IDF, soldiers can be seen firing on a street in the dark with the sound of automatic gunfire in the distance.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, said a building collapsed during the operation.
The IDF later said “all of the suspects were apprehended, and a number of terrorists were eliminated”.
Sana said three people were arrested by the troops before they withdrew.
ReutersSana quoted the director of a local hospital as saying it had received bodies, including five from one family. The director said dozens of people had also been injured in the incident.
The Syrian foreign ministry said more than 10 civilians had been killed, including women and children. It accused Israel of committing a “fully-fledged war crime”, and called on the UN Security Council to do something to stop Israel’s “policy of aggression”.
Israel regularly carries out incursions into Syrian villages, saying it acts to prevent the presence of armed groups.
Since the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad nearly a year ago, Israel has moved its forces across a buffer zone on the Golan Heights into southern Syria, where a number of anti-Israel groups and cells operate.
Israel says it will not allow the Syrian army, which it considers a threat, to deploy there.
The buffer zone – a demilitarised stretch of land – had been a no-go area designed to keep the peace after a ceasefire ended the 1973 war between Israel and Syria. The UN has said the IDF’s deployment there was a “violation” of the agreement which it said both sides should uphold.
The US has for months been mediating talks between Israel and Syria for a security agreement in the area between the two sides, but without success.
