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| By Israel Insider staff August 13, 2008 |
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IDF forces shot and lightly wounded an armed man who crossed from Syria into the Golan Heights on Wednesday, the army said late in the evening. Infiltrations from the Syrian border are rare. The IDF said the incident was reported to United Nations forces in the area. The infiltrator was brought to an Israeli hospital.
About a month ago, IDF forces shot and killed a Syrian man who arrived at the border fence in the northern Golan to do a drug deal. Another man at the scene was also shot and wounded. But neither of those men were armed, nor did they attempt an infiltration.
The incident occurred as Israel conducted a large-scale military drill on the Heights. Earlier Wednesday, sources in Damascus told Qatar's Al-Watan newspaper that the the Syrian leadership has taken several preventive measures, fearing that the exercise was a pretext for a military strike.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said "it's not by chance that the army is training in the Golan so extensively. We are seeing a significant strengthening by Hizbullah in the past few years. We're monitoring any possibility of a shift in balance (of power) due to the Syrians supplying Hizbullah with advances weapons' systems."
"We're doing what needs to be done, preparation wise. I'd rather not elaborate. If we need to take action we'll be ready," he said.
Israel and Syria announced in May that they were conducting indirect peace talks with Turkish mediation. Although trilateral meetings have been held since every few weeks, the Syrians are not yet willing to sit in the same room as the Israelis, and are demanding Israeli concessions for that privilege. The last round of negotiations collapsed in 2000 after the two sides failed to reach an agreement on the fate of the Golan.
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