Tuesday saw a variety of potentially escalatory fire from across the Syrian border into Israel. Unidentified gunmen firing on Israeli troops who were investigating an infiltration into Israeli territory by Syrian suspects. Dozens of blasts being linked to mortars fired across the border.

The situation is not, in other words, stable. The incidents underscored months of concerns that a power vacuum being created along the Israeli-Syrian border risked triggering escalating military incidents. Several countries comprising the United Nations peacekeeping force in the region (UNDOF) have withdrawn their contributions, while Syrian troops withdrew in substantial numbers. 

Multiple sides engaged in the Syrian conflict, including both the Bashar al-Assad regime and the opposition seeking its overthrow, have in recent months threatened to attack Israel. The regime has also reportedly empowered sub-state actors, including Palestinian terrorist groups and the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah, to launch attacks against the Jewish state.

Following Tuesday’s attacks, Israel’s envoy to the United Nations called on the international body to condemn the violations by the Syrian regime:

Prosor demanded the Security Council issue a resolution against what he called “the Syrian government’s grave violation of the Separation of Forces Agreement.”

“The fasting and prayers of thousands of Israelis commemorating the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av were interrupted by a barrage of mortar shells fired from Syria,” the ambassador said. “At the same time, and in a grave violation of the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement, tanks, trucks and armored vehicles belonging to Syrian government forces entered the buffer zone.”

In another incident of fire along a Syrian border, Turkish troops returned fire after errant bullets from Syria struck several homes and a police station.

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