JERUSALEM — Rebels fighting the Syrian government seized the only border crossing along the Israeli-Syrian cease-fire line in the Golan Heights on Thursday, according to the Israeli military and rebel groups, forcing the UN peacekeeping soldiers who patrol the crossing to vacate it, bringing the Syrian war closer to Israeli-held lands.
Israeli forces were placed on alert along the frontier as the violence of the Syrian civil war threatened to spill over.
The rebel takeover of the border crossing, Kuneitra, lasted for several hours. Later in the day Syrian state news media reported government forces had routed the insurgents and established control. Clashes in the area raged through much of the day.
The mayhem was enough to threaten the continuation of the UN Disengagement Observer Force, the longtime peacekeeping mission in the sensitive and disputed area.
The Kuneitra crossing is patrolled by Austrian UN peacekeepers, who were ordered to pull back for their own safety.
Later in Vienna the Austrian government said it was withdrawing its contingent from the force. Austria’s chancellor, Werner Faymann, was quoted by APA, the Austrian press agency, as saying he had spoken with Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, and “personally informed him about the decision.”
Josephine Guerrero, a spokeswoman for the UN peacekeeping forces, confirmed in an e-mail that Austria had informed the United Nations of its intended withdrawal.
“Austria has been a backbone of the mission, and their withdrawal will impact the mission’s operational capacity,” Guerrero said. “We are in discussions with them about timing, and with other troop-contributing countries to provide replacement troops.”
She also said two personnel from the peacekeeping force were injured by mortar rounds fired in the area but did not further identify them.
Austrians account for about 380 of the 1,000-strong UN force that has monitored the zone between Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights since 1974. The Philippines provides about 300, and India provides the rest. A fourth country, Croatia, withdrew its contingent earlier this year.
Twice in recent months a rebel group has taken groups of the Filipino peacekeepers captive, releasing them unharmed after several days. The Philippine government has been considering pulling its peacekeepers from the area.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing regret about Austria’s decision and said it hoped the Austrian withdrawal would “not be conducive to further escalation in the area.” The statement also said Israel expected the United Nations to maintain the peacekeeping force under the Security Council resolution that created it four decades ago.
But one senior Israeli government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, downplayed the importance of peacekeepers and said that in general there was “skepticism among the senior Israeli leadership as to the utility of international forces or monitors when things get tough.”
The official said he was not referring specifically to the Austrian decision, but was talking about “the larger picture.”
The Israeli government has long held to a doctrine of self-reliance regarding its security.
But analysts said that a disintegration of the UN peacekeeping force could certainly complicate the situation along the Israeli-Syrian frontier.
Amnon Sofrin, a retired Israeli brigadier general who now lectures at Israel’s National Defense College, said that the rebels were sending a message to President Bashar Assad of Syria that they were prepared to attack the government’s symbols after Syrian forces and Hezbollah allies from Lebanon pushed rebels from their symbolic stronghold of Qusair.
Sofrin said that if the UN peacekeeping force withdrew, the Golan Heights buffer zone would become “a no-man’s land” where Israel might have to face the rebels more directly.
The Israeli military declared the Israeli side of the crossing a closed military zone and told farmers to stay out of fields near the cease-fire line.
The Israeli military also confirmed that two injured Syrians had reached Israeli forces at the frontier and had been taken for treatment at a hospital in northern Israel. Israel Radio 12 said the trauma unit at the hospital in Safed had to be temporarily evacuated after staff found a live fragmentation grenade in the pocket of a Syrian. A bomb disposal unit disarmed the grenade; staff continued to treat the fighter, the report said.
SANA, Syria’s news agency, said Israeli ambulances transported some of the injured rebels, whom it called terrorists, into the Israeli-occupied land, which it said constituted “new proof of the close link between these terrorist groups and the Israeli occupation.”