Israeli snipers kill six & injure thirteen protesters during demonstrations in the Golan Heights
Israeli troops opened fire on Sunday at Palestinian protesters in Syria who rushed toward a border fence and Syrian state television said six demonstrators were killed.
"Anyone who tries to cross the border will be killed," Israeli soldiers shouted at the crowd of several hundred through loudspeakers on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Sunday marked the 44th anniversary of the 1967 Middle East war and Israel had been on alert for a repetition of last month's storming by thousands of Palestinian protesters of Israel's frontiers with Syria and Lebanon. Thirteen people were killed in those demonstrations marking the Naqba, or what Palestinians term the catastrophe of Israel's founding in 1948.
Rallying again to calls on Facebook to march to Israel, Palestinians in Syria descended from a hilltop overlooking the Druze village of Majdal Shams and reached the disputed border, that before last month had been largely tranquil for decades. Syrian TV said six protesters were killed by Israeli gunfire and 13 injured. Israel's chief military spokesman, Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai, said troops had opened fire but that he could not confirm any casualties. He told Israeli Army Radio that if the Syrian state television death toll was correct and Israeli soldiers had succeeded in stopping protesters from breaching the fence, then, "I think that's a measured, focused and proper response."
CBS News: 14 die as Israeli troops fire along Syria border