Israel claims to hit two Hezbollah fighters on Syria border

(MENAFN-Arab News) JERUSALEM: Israel?s army said Wednesday it struck two members of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah as they tried to plant a bomb near the Israeli-Syrian border

?Earlier today, two Hezbollah-affiliated terrorists were identified attempting to plant an explosive device near the Israel-Syria border in the northern Golan Heights. IDF (Israeli army) forces... fired toward the suspects (and) hits were identified,? the army said in a statement

The army did not specify what weapons were used to fire at the suspected Hezbollah members

But Syria said Israel had fired four rockets from the occupied Golan Heights on Wednesday morning, accusing it of ?violating? the cease-fire between the two states

?The Zionist enemy this morning violated the disengagement accord by firing four rockets from the occupied Golan toward a school and a mosque in Al-Hamidiyeh,? a Syrian army statement said

?It then fired four tank shells... and opened fire with their machine guns against (Syrian positions), wounding seven members of the internal security forces and four civilians,? the statement added

Syria said the rocket attack showed links between Israel and rebels fighting to bring down President Bashar Assad, a long-standing claim by the regime

The incident came just over a week after reports that Israeli warplanes bombarded a Hezbollah position on the Lebanese-Syrian border

Israel neither confirmed nor denied carrying out the two February 24 strikes, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying the Jewish state would do ?everything necessary? for its own security

Hezbollah threatened to retaliate for what was the first reported Israeli air raid on a position of the Shiite movement inside Lebanon since a 2006 war between them

Israel is bent on halting any transfer of weapons to its arch-enemy Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters across the border to aid Syrian President Bashar Assad?s regime as it battles Sunni-led rebels

Syria has long provided arms and other aid to Hezbollah, and served as a conduit for Iranian military aid to the movement, which battled Israel to a bloody stalemate in a 2006 war.