Updated | Israeli aircraft attacked targets in Syria on Tuesday, hours after a stray mortar bomb from fighting among factions in Syria struck the Golan Heights, the Israeli military said.
The strike came hours after a nationwide ceasefire in Syria brokered by the United States and Russia went into effect on Monday evening, the second attempt this year by Washington and Moscow to halt the five-year-old civil war.
No casualties from the mortar bomb that hit Israeli-held territory on Monday evening were reported and the military said in a statement "aircraft targeted artillery positions of (the) Syrian regime in the central Syrian Golan Heights."
The area is close to where fighting in the Syrian civil war has been taking place. Israel has responded similarly in the past when there has been an overspill of fire into the territory.
The previous retaliation for errant fire took place on Saturday when Israeli aircraft struck Syrian positions. A military spokeswoman said Tuesday's strike was the fourth retaliation since September 4.
The Syrian army said on Tuesday it had shot down an Israeli warplane and a drone in Syria after an Israeli attack on a Syrian army position in southern Syria, state media reported.
SANA news agency said the warplane had attacked an army position at 1 a.m. on Tuesday in the southern Quneitra countryside. It and a drone were then shot down.
Denying any of its aircraft had been lost, the Israeli military said in a statement: "Overnight two surface-to-air missiles were launched from Syria after the mission to target Syrian artillery positions. At no point was the safety of (Israeli) aircraft compromised."
Israel captured the Golan, a strategic plateau, from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in 1981 in a move that has not won international recognition.
This article has been updated with reports of Syria shooting down an Israeli warplane and drone, and an Israeli military statement of denial regarding the shooting down.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
