AMMAN/OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel said it killed at least five Palestinian militants in an airstrike on the Syrian Golan Heights on Friday, after cross-border rocket fire from Syria prompted the heaviest Israeli bombardment since the start of Syria's four-year-old civil war. An Israeli defense official said the people killed in Friday's airstrike were Palestinian militants from the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad. “We now know of five or six Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists killed,” the official said. A Syrian army source said the strike, at 10.30 a.m. (0730 GMT), hit a car in a village in the Syrian Golan Heights, killing five civilians. State television quoted the source as saying it took place near Quneitra, close to the Israeli-occupied section of the Golan region. It followed heavy overnight strikes by Israel against Syrian army posts in the border area in retaliation for what Israel said were rockets fired from Syria by Islamic Jihad. The rockets landed near an Israeli village, setting off fires but causing no casualties. Islamic Jihad denied it was involved. — Reuters
