{Israel shot down a Syrian fighter jet over the Golan Heights on Tuesday, the army said, indicating that it had crossed the ceasefire line into the Israeli-occupied sector.}<\/p>\n
It was the most serious incident to take place on the strategic plateau since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011.<\/p>\n
“A warplane that penetrated Israeli territory was successfully shot down a short while ago by the air defence systems along the Syrian border,” a military statement said, without giving further details.<\/p>\n
Army radio said it was apparently a MiG-21 fighter jet which was shot down by a surface-to-air Patriot missile, with the wreckage landing on the Syrian-controlled side of the plateau.<\/p>\n
The downing came just three weeks after Israel shot down a drone over the Golan as heavy fighting raged on the Syrian side, most of which has been seized by rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n
The Assad regime has been hitting back with frequent air strikes in a bid to retake control of the plateau. Some have been close to Israeli positions.<\/p>\n
Since the uprising erupted more than three years ago, the plateau has been tense, with a growing number of rockets and mortar rounds hitting the Israeli side, most of them stray, prompting occasional retaliatory fire.<\/p>\n
But there have been several incidents of intentional fire, one of which killed an Israeli teenager in June.<\/p>\n
Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan during the Six-Day War of 1967, then annexed it in 1981 in a move never recognised by the international community.<\/p>\n
Some 510 square kilometres of the Golan remain on the Syrian side of the ceasefire line, with UN forces overseeing a buffer zone stretching some 70 kilometres (45 miles) from Lebanon in the north to Jordan in the south.<\/p>\n
AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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