Palestinian demonstrators in Syria :Facebook call

Israeli troops fired at Palestinian demonstrators in Syria who rushed to the frontier fence on Sunday in what Israel called a challenge to its sovereignty. Syrian state-run media said 18 were killed."Anyone who tries to cross the border will be killed," Israeli soldiers shouted through loudspeakers at the crowd of several hundred on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights who rallied to a Facebook call to march to the frontier on the 44th anniversary of the Arab defeat in the 1967 Middle East war.As darkness fell and heavy mist descended on the high plateau, some protesters lit bonfires close to the fence and said they would remain in the area, Syrian television reported. Israel's Channel 1 in Majdal Shams said most of the protesters had dispersed as the cold night air took hold.Israel captured Syria's Golan Heights in that conflict, as well as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where Palestinians Hwant to establish a state.Israel has accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of permitting the Golan protests to try to divert international attention from his bloody suppression of the popular revolt against his authoritarian rule."The Syrian leadership is encouraging events on the Golan Heights in order to divert the world's attention away from the bloodbath they have inflicted on their own people," Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, told Reuters.