Israel: No tolerance for border aggression

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JERUSALEM, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- The Israeli government has no tolerance for an escalation of the Syrian civil war that would spill over its northern border, the prime minister said Monday.

The Israeli government is monitoring the situation in the Golan Heights, considered to be Syrian territory occupied by Israel, after Syrian shells landed in the region.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Monday, through a spokesman, that he "will not allow anyone to breach our borders or to fire on our citizens," The Jerusalem Post reports.

Israeli forces fired on Syrian territory in response to Syrian shells that struck on the Israeli side of the border. Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon said, however, that Syrian President Bashar Assad has no interest in letting his country's civil war escalate to the point that it engulfs Israel.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon responded to weekend violence in the Golan Heights, saying, through his spokesman, that he was "deeply concerned by the potential for escalation."

"He calls for the utmost restraint and urges Syria and Israel to ... respect their mutual obligations and halt firing of any kind across the cease-fire line," Ban's statement read.

The U.N. Disengagement Observer Force has been monitoring a 1974 truce brokered between Israel and Syria in response to the Yom Kippur War the previous year.