Israel's military fired weapons into Syria for the second straight day in response to errant cross-border firing that threatens to draw the Israeli's into Syria's civil war. For the second time in two days, mortar fire from the Syrian military landed in the Golan Heights, the Israel-controlled territory that serves as a buffer between the two countries. The Israel Defense Forces fired back, claiming they landed "direct hits" on the source of the mortar fire. On Sunday, the IDF fired one missile as a "warning shot" after a similar accidental mortar strike.

There were no reports of injuries on either side, but the Syria government's talent for sowing chaos among its neighbors is not an encouraging sign for the situation in the Middle East. The U.N. has urged restraint from both sides, but such urging has not done much to slow any of the violence in the Syrian civil war.

At the same time that their northern neighbors are stirring up trouble, a similar missile-mortar campaign is escalating in Gaza, on Israel's southern end. More than 100 Palenstinian rockets have been fired into Israel in the last four days and despite several deadly counterstrikes in retaliation, the situation does not seem to be abating. That's prompting some officials on the Israeli side to contemplate a more drastic solution to the problem, with one senior security minister ominously stating that "it is necessary to re-format Gaza altogether." Israel must appear resolute in the face the Palestinian attacks, but the only possible definition of "re-format" would be an invasion and the removal of Hamas from the territory. That's a situation no one actually wants, including Egypt, which is furiously trying to make the peace. The last thing the IDF wants to be doing is fighting a two-war front

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Dashiell Bennett