http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/06/06/israeli-troops-gird-for-more-syria-border-violence/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fworld+%28Internal+-+World+Latest+-+Text%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Height – Syrian police blocked dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters from approaching the Israeli frontier on Monday. The toll of demonstrators killed trying to break through into the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights rose to 23.
Syrian police set up a pair of checkpoints, including one a half-mile (kilometer) from the border. Nearly 20 protesters, some waving Syrian flags, began walking down a hill leading to the border when two police officers blocked their advance by extending their arms.
Protesters passed Syrian and U.N. outposts without impediment on Sunday and during a similar border rush three weeks ago, and it was not clear why Syrian security forces intervened Monday.
Protesters passed Syrian and U.N. outposts without impediment on Sunday and during a similar border rush three weeks ago, and it was not clear why Syrian security forces intervened Monday.
The repeated attempts to challenge the borders play into widespread Israeli fears that the Palestinians will not make do with a state on lands captured in 1967, but want to take over all of historic Palestine, including present-day Israel.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak suggested that the Syrian regime might have instigated Sunday's border unrest -- and similar unrest three weeks ago -- to deflect attention from its crackdown on its own protesters. At least 35 Syrians died in a government crackdown in the country's north over the weekend.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Israel would file a complaint to the U.N. later Monday "concerning the Syrian regime's cynical manipulation of its own citizens in order to generate violent incidents on the border."
