Israel destroys sniper vehicle trying to shoot into Israel from Syria

Israel prevented a sniper attack on the Syrian border after spotting a vehicle reportedly full of Hezbollah operatives preparing to fire at Israeli troops.

The Israel Defense Forces said the vehicle was spotted on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights and the Air Force fired a missile at and destroyed the car.

“A short time ago an IDF force identified an attempt at a sniping attack in the northern Golan Heights,” the army said in a statement. “The force attacked the vehicle involved in the attempted attack.”

The vehicle belonged to members of a militia loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor. But the Syrian state-run news agency SANA said the car was a civilian vehicle “in the suburbs of Quneitra.”

The attack took place on Election Day and Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said Israel’s enemies were trying to disrupt the results and kill Israelis in the process.

“We will cut off the hands of our enemies and we will not allow them to disrupt our lives,” Bennett said.

The incident came just a few hours after Israel apparently killed an Iranian operative in a drone strike in Syria. A source said the man was Imad Tawil, a local resident who had been recruited by Hezbollah who had been organizing a “terror infrastructure” to be used for border attacks against Israel.