Israel points to Syria after killing protesters in the Golan Heights

Israeli troops battled hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters who tried to cross Syria's border with Israel in the Golan Heights on Sunday, killing as many as 25 people and wounding scores more.

The protesters, who had organized on Facebook, passed Syrian and U.N. outposts on their way to the frontier to mark the anniversary of the Arab defeat in the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria.

It was the second outbreak of deadly violence in the border area in less than a month and Israel accused Syria of orchestrating the violence to shift attention away from a bloody crackdown on opposition protests at home, the AP reports.

"The Syrian government is trying to created a provocation," said Israel's chief military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai. "This border has been quiet for decades, but only now with all the unrest in Syrian towns is there an attempt to draw attention to the border."

"We warned them verbally [and] with warning shots into the air," Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich told CNN. "And when these two options failed, we had to open fire selectively into the area, and this actually stopped those Syrians from reaching the Israeli-Syrian fence."

Syria, meanwhile, has experienced one of its bloodiest weekends since the start of the uprising, the Guardian reports. An estimated 90 people were killed on Friday across the country as protests against President Bashar al-Assad and his regime spread through the country demanding his resignation. The government had reportedly attempted to stop news spreading by cutting off the internet in major cities.

The crackdown reportedly continued through Sunday, with activists reporting gunfire and tanks moving into the town of Khan Shikhon in the north-west province of Idlib.

There was no Syrian comment on why the protesters were seemingly let through to storm the Israeli border. Syria's state-run media blamed a spontaneous uprising of Palestinian youths from a nearby refugee camp.

It said 25 people had been killed and more than 350 wounded in the border protests, which continued past nightfall.