JERUSALEM — At least two rockets fired from Syria struck the Israeli-controlled portion of the Golan Heights on Tuesday and Israel responded with artillery toward the suspected launching sites in Syria, according to the Israeli military. The exchange added to already heightened tensions along a once-quiet frontier that has been increasingly destabilized by the Syrian civil war.
No casualties were reported on the Israeli side, where sirens warned of the incoming rockets, which fell on open ground. The military ordered the evacuation and closure of the ski slopes of the Mount Hermon resort and the police briefly closed some roads in the area. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition monitoring group, said Israel had bombed bases of the Syrian Army. There was no immediate information about casualties on the Syrian side.
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On Tuesday, before the rockets fell, about 1,000 visitors had entered the small Israeli ski resort at Mount Hermon. Tamar Durst, who had brought her son to ski there as a birthday surprise, said she heard an announcement instructing all civilians to evacuate the area, but there was no panic. “The evacuation was orderly, the order was exemplary,” she told Israel Radio. “Everyone was very disciplined and returned the equipment,” she added.
Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.
