JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said Saturday that its troops were assisting UN peacekeeping forces in the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights in repelling an attack “by armed individuals”.

“A short while ago, an attack was carried out by armed individuals at a UN post in the Hader area in Syria,” the army said in a statement, referring to a town on the edge of the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights.

“The (Israeli army) is currently assisting the UN forces in repelling the attack.”

Earlier on Saturday, Syrian rebels took control of the provincial capital of Quneitra around 12 kilometres (eight miles) south of Hader, Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Israeli airstrike attacks Syrian military targets

The long-stalemated Syrian civil war burst back into life late last month, with rebels sweeping across the country and capturing multiple major cities.

On Friday, the Israeli military said it was “reinforcing aerial and ground forces” in the Israeli-occupied parts of the Golan in response to the situation in Syria. And on Saturday it said it had conducted exercises to ensure troop readiness.

Israel conquered most of the Golan Heights during the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed the territory in a move never recognised by the international community as a whole.

A UN peacekeeping force, UNDOF, has patrolled a buffer zone between the Israeli- and Syrian-controlled zones since 1974.

In August 2014, rebels attacked UNDOF and took more than 40 Fijian peacekeepers hostage, holding them captive for almost two weeks.