(CNN) Israel said it hit targets in Syrian territory after three rockets were fired at it from Syria on Saturday.
One of the rockets landed in the southern Golan Heights, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said. The IDF said there was no need to intercept the rockets, according to a post on Twitter.
“In response to the rockets fired from Syria by Israel earlier today, the IDF Artillery is currently attacking Syrian territory,” the Israel Defense Forces said on its Twitter account on Saturday evening local time.
It said an IDF UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle or drone) was “currently striking Syrian launchers from which rockets were launched into Israeli territory earlier this evening.”
In the first tweet, the IDF said sirens were “sounding in northern Israel.”
The IDF did not report any damage caused by the rockets.
Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed a narrow strip of land in 1981. The Golan Heights is considered occupied territory under international law and UN Security Council resolutions.
The news comes after Israel attacked Palestinian militant targets in southern Lebanon and Gaza early Friday, after several rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory.
Tensions at al-Aqsa mosque
The rocket launches came amid rising tensions in the region following an attack by Israeli police on Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque.
Attacks by Israeli police on mosques are considered by Muslims as a major provocation.
Israeli police stormed the mosque twice on Wednesday last week, claiming that “hundreds of rioters and mosque vandals barricaded themselves” inside.
On Saturday night, the Israeli police also said that, “many young people [had] entered the mosque and closed the doors, for no reason.”
Israel’s neighbor Jordan has warned of “catastrophic consequences” if Israeli forces attack the mosque again.
Israeli soldiers patrol during the search for a rocket that landed near Kibbutz Meitsar in the Golan Heights on April 9, 2023.
Should the Israeli police, “again attack worshipers, in an attempt to clear [the mosque] of worshipers, in preparation for large-scale attacks on the mosque,” this, “will push the situation to further tension and violence, where everyone will pay the price,” the spokesman for the Jordanian Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Sinan al-Majali, said in a statement on Saturday local time.
“The government of Israel bears responsibility for the development of Jerusalem and all occupied Palestinian territories and for the deterioration that will worsen if it does not stop its invasion of the holy al-Aqsa mosque … days,” said al-Majali.
The warning from Jordan was followed by a statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry early Sunday, which said that people had “barricaded themselves inside. [the al-Aqsa mosque] a dangerous crowd, radicalized and incited by Hamas and other terrorist organizations.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry called on the guards of the Waqf in Jordan, “to immediately remove from al-Aqsa Mosque these extremists who are planning riots (on Sunday) during the Muslim prayer at the Temple Mount and the Priestly Blessing of Western Wall.”
The Waqf is the Jordanian-designated body that oversees the al-Aqsa mosque compound, known as the Temple Mount to Jews.
Shooting was reported in the West Bank
In a separate development on Saturday night, the IDF killed a 20-year-old Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank city of Azzoun, according to the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health.
The man, Ayed Azam Salim, was shot and killed by live Israeli bullets in the stomach and chest in Qalqilya district, according to the ministry.
“After the usual activity, several suspects threw an explosive device at IDF soldiers in the town of Azzun,” the IDF said in a statement. The soldiers responded “with live ammunition at them” and one person was hit, the statement added. No IDF soldiers were injured, according to the statement.
Salim was taken to a hospital in Qalqilya where he died, according to the Palestinian News Agency WAFA.
On Friday, one person was killed and seven were injured in a car attack in Tel Aviv. Police said the car was driven by a 45-year-old resident of Kfar Kasem, a predominantly Arab town east of Tel Aviv.
The victim, an Italian tourist, was named by Israeli and Italian authorities as Alessandro Parini. Italian media said he was a 35-year-old lawyer. Israeli authorities described the incident as a “terror attack.”
