JERUSALEM, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- Israel's Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Monday that projectiles that hit Israel on Saturday were not errant fire but a deliberate attack by Hezbollah fighters in Syria.
Lieberman accused the Shiite Lebanese militia of Hezbollah's leader, Hasan Nasrallah, of ordering the attack, in which at least four projectiles hit an open filed in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights without causing damage or injuries.
A military spokesperson said right after the incident that the projectiles "appear to be" a spillover from the internal fighting in Syria. But in a meeting of his Israel Our Home party on Monday, Lieberman said the fire was deliberate.
Lieberman charged that Hassan Nasrallah "personally instructed" the attack. According to Lieberman, Hezbollah did not coordinate the attack with Syrian President Bashar Assad and did not inform him about it, "in order to compartmentalize the Assad regime and drag him" into a new front with Israel.
In response to the projectiles, the Israeli army targeted three artillery cannons of the Syrian regime.
Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Lebanese militia has been fighting along Assad's army in the six-year war in Syrian.
Israel and Hezbollah are arch enemies. Their last round of war ended in August 2006 after 34 days of fighting.
Israel occupied part of the Golan Heights during the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it later, in a move never recognized by the international community.
