Clashes along the ceasefire lines separating Israel and Syria on the Golan Heights were a deliberate attempt by Syria to inflame the border and divert attention from its bloody crackdown on internal protests, Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday, dpa reported.
Commenting on Sunday's clashes, which saw 23 demonstrators killed by Israeli soldiers deployed along the frontier, Netanyahu told legislators from his Likud party parliamentary caucus that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad did not "use its weight to stop the events from happening."
The protests along the frontier took place as Palestinians marked the outbreak of the 1967 Six Day war, an event they call the naksa, or setback.