In the night leading up to Monday, heavy fighting broke out along the border with Lebanon, according to the state-run Syrian media.
The Syrian regime had accused the Lebanese Hezbollah of infiltrating Syria on Saturday, kidnapping three soldiers and killing them on Lebanese soil.
The Syrian News Channel, citing an unnamed official from the Defense Ministry, reported that the Syrian army had shelled “Hezbollah gatherings that had killed Syrian soldiers” along the border. Hezbollah denied any involvement in a statement on Sunday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitoring organization, reported that five more Syrian soldiers were killed in the clashes on Monday. Online and local media shared footage of families fleeing the shelling in the direction of the Syrian village of Hermel.
Violence in the region between the Syrian military and armed Lebanese, who are closely tied to the government of the ousted President Bashar Assad and have their base in the Lebanese border town of Al-Qasr, has increased significantly in recent times.
Hundreds of Alawites have waded through a river in recent weeks to seek safety in Lebanon, fearing for their lives due to sectarian murders of their Alawite community by Islamists in Syria. They are among the hundreds of people who have fled to the neighboring country to escape the violence.
Meanwhile, a high-ranking Hezbollah official, Hussein Haj Hassan, accused fighters from the Syrian side in an interview with the Lebanese TV channel Al Jadeed of infiltrating Lebanese territory and attacking border villages. His electoral district is the northeastern province of Baalbek-Hermel, which has borne the brunt of the clashes.
The Lebanese and Syrian armies said they had opened communication channels to ease the tensions. The Lebanese army also announced that it had brought back the bodies of the three killed Syrian soldiers and that a large number of Lebanese soldiers had been stationed in the area.