In February 1974, negotiations between Israel and Syria began under the mediation of Henry Kissinger, the US Secretary of State. Alongside these negotiations, the fight went on, slowly growing in intensity, with over 1,000 incidents between March and May. The Israelis called these incidents, which included the shelling of Israeli civilian settlements in Golan territory, the "War of Attrition in the Syrian Salient" or the "Little War of Attrition", to distinguish from the War of Attrition against Egypt in 1969–70.