Two UN peacekeepers were wounded today when mortar rounds fired from Syria hit their base in the Israeli-held sector of the Golan Heights, an army spokesperson said.

“Mortar shells hit the Golan in Ein Zivan and in the Zivanit UNDOF base. Two UN peacekeeping soldiers were evacuated to Israel for medical care,” Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner wrote on his official Twitter account.

Israel public radio said the two were lightly wounded.

The army said the fire was not deliberately aimed at the Israeli side of the plateau, but was stray fire from the ongoing conflict in Syria.

Since the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011, the plateau has been tense, with a growing number of rockets and mortar rounds hitting the Israeli side, mostly stray, prompting the occasional armed response.

In January, a Spanish UN peacekeeper was killed on the Israel-Lebanon border during an exchange of fire between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants.

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP that fighting has been taking place since last week between rebel groups in an area close to the ceasefire line.

“There is still infighting going on among rebel groups in Qahtaniya near the ceasefire line with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. They’re exchanging shellfire,” he said.

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan Heights in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.

After foreign sources reported on Wednesday that the IDF began to increase its forces in the Golan Heights near the Syrian border, fears were rising on Thursday that Islamic State-linked fighters are nearing the area.

According to the reports, the reinforcements include Merkava tanks and armored personnel carriers. The defense establishment is following reports that one of the anti-Assad rebel groups has sworn allegiance to Islamic State and the same group is behind the “spillover” of mortar fire from the Syrian Golan into Israel in recent days.

The organization in question is Saraya al-Jihad (Jihad Brigades), who not only swore allegiance to Islamic State, but also succeeded in conquering the village of Qahtaniya near the border.

According to reports from Syria, the Sunni jihadist group has succeeded in establishing a base close to the border, just three kilometers from Kibbutz Ein Zivan in the Israeli Golan Heights. The possibility that light weapons fire that hit Israel on Wednesday came from the group’s fighters is being investigated.

Israel is tracking the events beyond the border, but senior IDF officials claim that they have no intention of interfering in fighting between the various rebel groups and Assad’s army. The belief is that no Syrian group or army is currently interested in acting against Israel, however in the defense establishment preparations have been made for the possibility that one of these groups openly turns their military efforts against Israel.

The IDF knows that the point recently conquered by Saraya al-Jihad was formerly in the hands of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, whose operatives did not attempt to challenge the IDF. The estimate is that the mortar shells that landed in Israel on Tuesday were part of the Free Syrian Army and Nusra Front’s efforts to reconquer the area.

The IDF’s official response to reports that it was adding reinforcements to the area was that the army “does not respond to foreign reports,” however the farmers and workers of Ein Zivan’s fields, where the mortar shells landed in recent days, were instructed by the army to be alert. The order was given after a number of shells from light firearms crossed into Israel as a result of fighting between Syrian rebels and the army. Nobody was injured in the incident. After several minutes of fire from the Syrian Golan, the farmers were instructed to abandon their work and leave the fields until the fighting ceased.

However, a defense source downplayed the danger in the area, saying that the Golan enjoys “a pastoral life, a prosperous tourism industry and fruitful agriculture. With the exception of a few small events that Israel has control over, the situation is considered very stable,” he said.

Eyewitnesses said that the Hamas-run security forces in the Gaza Strip attacked, Wednesday, protesters demanding Fateh and Hamas movements to end their tensions and divisions, and arrested several Palestinians, including journalists and women.

The procession took place in the Shejaeyya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, and was organized by the “April 29 Youth Movement” calling for unity and an end to all internal divisions and rifts.

Eyewitnesses said the security forces arrested and detained a large number of protesters, including a journalist and two young women, after they marched following the press conference.

They added that most of the participants were leftists, in addition to many residents who decided to attend and send a message to political leaders telling them “the time has come to unite, and end internal divisions, arrests and ongoing rifts.”

The April 29 Youth Movement said some persons, who are not part of their movement, started acting in a manner meant to foil their protest, and started quarreling with the protesters after they asked them to maintain the peaceful aspect of the protest.

Coordinator of the April 29 Youth Movement Rami Aman told the Wattan News Agency that some of the participants carried signs against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and other signs that contradict the message of the movement and its goal to bridge the gap between Hamas and Fateh.

Aman denied reports that the Hamas-run police attacked the protesters, but said it is likely that some of the persons, who attacked them to end to activity, are members and supporters of the Hamas movement.

Meanwhile, several activists said that the Hamas-run security forces surrounded the area before the protesters started gathering, and took over the main stage where some speeches were planned before starting the protest.

They added that gunmen started firing into the air, and attacked many participants, in addition to using foul language.

Journalist Mohammad Othman told the Wattan News Agency that the version of events as narrated by the Ministry of Interior in Gaza is false, and that gunmen who also carried batons and clubs attacked the nonviolent protesters.

“I saw what happened; I saw them carrying guns and batons,” Othman told Wattan News, “They attacked the activists, and the journalists as well.”

The two mortar rounds fired on Israel’s Golan Heights from Syria in estimated “spillover” were launched by Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist organization, which is the closest it’s ever been to the Israeli border with Syria.

The ISIS-linked Jaish al-Jihad has captured the border town of Qahtaniya in southern Quneitra province on the Syrian Golan, thereby taking up its closest position to Israel yet at a distance of just 2.5 to 3 kilometers (1.5-1.8 miles), according to Walla!.

Qahtaniya had been in the hands of the Free Syrian Army and the Al Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front which had kept the status quo vis-a-vis Israel, concentrating their efforts against the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Now that the town has fallen to ISIS, it may turn into a base of attacks against the Jewish state.

On Tuesday morning Nusra Front launched an operation to try and recapture the town, with clashes between it and ISIS including machine gun fire, anti-tank missiles and mortar rounds. During the clash two mortar shells slammed into Israel near Kibbutz Ein Zivan.

The “spillover” repeated on Wednesday, as machine gun fire hit the same area near Ein Zivan.

Golan has been heating up lately, with four Arab terrorists being eliminated by the IDF on Sunday as they tried to place an explosive on the Israeli border.

The IDF has said it can’t rule out that the terrorists were sent by Assad’s regime; the father of two of the four was an Israeli Druze who was arrested for being in connection with Syrian intelligence spying against Israel, and who fled to Syria after being released in the 1980s.

Things don’t seem prone to quiet down on the Golan any time soon either, if Iran has anything to say about it.

Syrian Defense Minister General Fahd al-Freij arrived in Iran on Tuesday for a rare two-day visit, the first since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, and while there was reportedly told by the Iranian regime propping up Assad to attack Israel together with Iran’s proxy terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Al-Freij was told to spark a conflict on the Golan Heights in an Iranian effort to expand its regional hegemony and influence at all costs.

United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Commander Maj. Gen. Luciano Portolano stressed on Wednesday that Israel is obligated to withdraw from the northern section of the village of Ghajar, as well as the areas adjacent to the Blue Line in accordance with U.N. Security Council resolution 1701.

“Its presence in the area violates resolution 1701,” Portolano said in an interview with As Safir newspaper.

He pointed out that the matter is “nonnegotiable as the territory is Lebanese.”

“We have been firm in discussing the issue during all our bilateral and tripartite meetings with Israel,” Portolano said, considering it as a “priority.”

The U.N. official revealed that the UNIFIL “offered all the necessary facilitations to guarantee Israel’s withdrawal from the area,” however, the Jewish state didn’t respond to any of the demands.

Resolution 1701, which ended the Hizbullah-Israel war in 2006, expanded the mandate of U.N. troops in the South, which was originally formed in 1978 after the outbreak of Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.

It imposed a strict embargo on weapons destined for Lebanese or foreign militias in Lebanon, and pressed Israel to end violations of Lebanon’s airspace and to withdraw from northern Ghajar.

“Since resolution 1701 was issued, the South witnessed yet its calmest periods in decades… All parties respect the Blue Line and responded to UNIFIL’s efforts to prevent any escalation by containing all incidents.” Portolano noted.

The official said that “the security situation in the South is strategically different today than it was in 2006 due to the exerted endeavors by the UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces.”

“The situation in the area of operations of peacekeepers is currently stable.”

Portolano said that amid the regional developments, the UNIFIL is keen to guarantee the stability of the Blue Line.