Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Tuesday that Syrian forces launched an attack that killed an Israeli boy on the occupied Golan Heights and Damascus would have to "pay the price" for it.
An anti-tank missile fired from Syria across the frontier fence on Sunday killed Mohammed Qaraqara, 13, drawing Israeli tank fire and airstrikes on Syrian Army positions.
"We got all the analysis, all the intelligence and it was clear it was Syrian authorities, Assad's forces, who fired on the Israeli boy," Lieberman said, referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
It was the first time an Israeli official has laid blame for the attack, which Israel had earlier described as intentional and the most serious on the frontier since the start of the 3-year-old Syrian conflict.
There were conflicting accounts on the number of Syrians killed in the Israeli retaliatory airstrikes late Sunday. The Syrian Foreign Ministry said four people were killed and nine wounded, according to state news agency SANA and an Israeli military source said Monday that three Syrians were killed and 10 wounded. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "at least 10 members of the Syrian Army were killed."