Israeli teen hit in back, lightly hurt by gunfire from Syria

Doctors find bullet lodged in girl’s back; apparent stray shot from civil war across the border

By Judah Ari Gross 7 April 2017, 6:12 pm

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Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.

A picture taken from the Golan Heights on September 10, 2016, shows smoke rising from the Syrian village of Jubata al-Khashab. Israeli aircraft struck Syrian army positions after fire from its war-torn neighbor hit the Golan. (AFP/Jalaa Marey)

An Israeli teenager was lightly wounded by gunfire in the Golan Heights on Thursday, the army said, apparently as a result of spillover from the Syrian civil war.

On Thursday, IDF troops and police were called to the area of Alonei Habashan, a moshav in the eastern Golan Heights, with reports that a rock exploded after it was heated up by a camping stove, the army said.

The Israeli girl complained of pains and was taken to a doctor, but her initial check did not reveal anything out of the ordinary.

On Friday, the teenager returned to the hospital, where doctors found the bullet in her back, the army said.

Likely due to the considerable distance from Syria, the bullet only caused light injuries.

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The gunfire does not appear to have been directed at Israel, but was more likely a stray shot from the internal fighting across the border.

While mortar shells from Syria have, at times, fallen regularly in the Golan Heights, there have been relatively few Israeli casualties as a result of them.

On August 27, 2014, an Israeli man was injured by shrapnel, also lightly.