Israeli officials on Tuesday doubled down on claims made earlier this week that the Bashar al-Assad regime was responsible for a weekend attack near the Israel-Syria border that killed an Israeli boy. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said it was “clear” that forces loyal to the Assad regime were behind the attack that killed Mohammed Karkara and injured at least three others:

“We got all the analysis, all the intelligence and it was clear it was Syrian authorities, Assad’s forces, who fired on the Israeli boy,” Liberman said, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“They must pay the price,” he told Israel Radio. “I hope Damascus got the message.”

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon had earlier this week emphasized that the Assad regime was responsible for preventing all attacks launched from inside Syrian territory. Reuters noted that Jerusalem regarded the cross-border attack as ‘intentional and the most serious on the frontier’ since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011.

The Israeli Air Force responded to the attack, which took place in the country’s Golan Heights region, with raids on regime facilities and assets, deploying fixed wing aircraft and Tamuz missiles against the Syrian command and control infrastructure. Israel’s Golan region, near the country’s border with Syria, has long been under threat of attack by both the Syrian regime and jihadist opposition forces. The security situation along the border has steadily deteriorated during the course of the war in Syria – various forces that have secured the border for nearly four decades, including the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), have scaled back security efforts in the area.

State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf in Tuesday’s press briefing slammed recent attacks from Syria:

QUESTION: On Monday, Israeli jets carried out an airstrike against nine military points in Syria. And what would be your assessment in this – on this event?

MS. HARF: Let me see what I have on that. Well, as we have said – let me just get it up right here. No one asked this yesterday. I was actually surprised. That we support Israel’s legitimate right to self-defense in response to unprovoked assaults, and that we, of course, believe that countries have the right to defend themselves, and beyond that don’t have much more comment. Recent attacks we’ve seen from Syria are unacceptable and have been clear about our concerns about that as well.

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