As artillery shells from Syria fell on the Israeli-controlled side of the Golan Heights, the Israeli army dispatched fighter planes to bomb Syrian government positions in retaliation.

The Syrian military claimed that the Israeli army launched an attack on Syrian military targets in Quneitra province near the Golan Heights. In response, the Syrian army shot down an Israeli aircraft and a drone.

In this regard, the Israeli military stated that after the Israeli fighter planes carried out the mission of bombing Syrian military targets from the late night of September 12 to the early morning of the 13th, the Syrian side did launch two surface-to-air missiles, but the missiles did not hit the Israeli fighter planes. "The safety of the Israeli fighter planes was not affected at all."

Late Tuesday, the Israeli military said three more artillery shells from Syria had hit the Golan Heights, prompting Israel to respond again by targeting Syrian artillery positions.

The Russian media Russia Today quoted an Israeli military spokesman as saying that this was the fourth exchange of fire between the two sides since September 4. Tuesday was the first full day of the implementation of the ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States and Russia in Syria.

After the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War in 1967, most of the Golan Heights was under Israeli control. Quneitra province, which borders Syria, is an area where violent conflicts between Syrian government forces and anti-government Islamic forces often occur.

The Israeli military said it was difficult to determine whether the artillery attacks on the Golan Heights were intentional by Syria or whether they were inadvertently off target.

According to the Russian Interfax news agency, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov urged Israel to exercise restraint against Syrian shells that may have deflected, but Israel insisted that the Syrian government should be responsible for this and said it would respond to any shelling on the Golan Heights.

The Syrian civil war has entered its sixth year. The New York Times stated that Israel ostensibly takes a neutral position in this war, but has been taking covert actions to prevent the delivery of sophisticated weapons to support the Syrian government. Troubled by a civil war, Israel's response to artillery fire in the Golan Heights and its covert operations, while condemned by Syria, have generally been shielded from retaliation from the Syrian government.

Xinhua News Agency reported that rockets or mortars from Syria often fall on the Israeli-controlled side of the Golan Heights, usually without causing casualties or property damage. The Israeli army has shelled and bombed military targets in Syria three times in the past week, and this is the first time that the Syrian government forces have fired missiles in response.

The "Washington Times" quoted local media sources as saying that Syria launched surface-to-air missiles to attack Israeli aircraft, which was the first known retaliation against Israel by the Assad regime in the past six years. According to reports, this means that the Syrian government supported by Russia is becoming more and more powerful, bringing Syria and Israel closer and closer to a war.