Israel launches anti-aircraft missiles at Syrian drone — army

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel on Sunday fired missiles towards an unmanned drone that entered Israeli-controlled airspace from Syria and it turned back, the military said in a statement.

"Two Patriot air defence missiles were fired towards a drone which infiltrated Israeli airspace in the central Golan Heights. The drone returned to Syria," the Israeli army said.

A military spokeswoman said there were no known casualties.

Israel has often responded to errant mortar fire from the civil war in neighbouring Syria on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights with tank and mortar shells and with air strikes, but the use of Patriot anti-aircraft interceptor missiles is unusual.

A Syrian rebel source in the area said the Syrian army had launched a rare air raid on Al Shajara village along the Jordanian border. The village, which is also close to the Israeli frontier, is held by the Shuhada Al Yarmouk group, who are thought to be Daesh affiliates.

Though formally neutral on the civil war, Israel has frequently pledged to prevent shipments of advanced weaponry to Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hizbollah group, whose fighters have been allied with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Two months ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had launched dozens of strikes in Syria.

The Golan Heights is a strategic plateau that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East, and annexed in a move that has not won international recognition.