The clashes were a violent turn in the confrontation between the U.N. force responsible for monitoring the demarcation line between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Islamist rebels who are fighting a civil war against the Syrian government. The peacekeepers inside returned fire and kept the attackers from entering, but fighting kept the peacekeepers stuck in the area. The confrontations highlighted the new dangers that more than three years of civil war in Syria have posed for international organizations working there.