Israel strikes targets inside Syria

Israel said it killed at least five Palestinian militants in an air strike on the Syrian Golan Heights yesterday, after cross-border rocket fire from there prompted the heaviest Israeli bombardment since the start of Syria's four-year-old civil war.

An Israeli defense official said the people killed were Palestinian militants from the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad. "We now know of five or six Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists killed," the official said.

A Syrian army source said the strike, at 10.30 am (0730 GMT), hit a car in a village in the Syrian Golan, killing five civilians. State television quoted the source as saying it took place near Quneitra, close to the Israeli-occupied side of the Golan.

It followed heavy overnight strikes by Israel against Syrian army posts in the border area in retaliation for what Israel said were rockets fired from Syria by Islamic Jihad.

The rockets landed near an Israeli village, setting off fires but causing no casualties.

Islamic Jihad denied involvement in Thursday's rocket salvo and said those killed in yesterday's air strike were not its own.

"These are all lies ... Islamic Jihad has no armed presence outside of Palestine," group spokesman Dawoud Shehab said, referring to Israel, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Islamic Jihad's leadership is based in Damascus and it has a following among Syria's Palestinian refugee community.