Israeli Raids and Detentions Push Southern Syria Villages to the Brink
At least 51 Syrians remain detained inside Israel after a sustained campaign of raids, arrests and shelling in southern Syria, Al Jazeera has ascertained.
The detentions follow expanded Israeli activity since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024. Israel occupied additional Syrian land in the immediate aftermath, and has since carried out hundreds of strikes on Syrian military infrastructure and seized new positions deeper into Syria, according to Reuters.
Residents describe near-daily pressure. Since early August, the Israeli military has fired shells into fields in southern Syria on most days. On October 8, Israeli forces patrolled a village in Quneitra countryside with tanks while conducting raids in residential areas. On October 14, Israeli forces carried out fresh incursions and attacks in Daraa in southern Syria.
A Syrian monitor, the Sijil Center, documented 280 Israeli violations of the 1974 agreement in September, including incursions, raids and arrests, as well as artillery and machine-gun fire. That 1974 agreement set up a demilitarised zone between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and the rest of Syria, where UN forces have patrolled since.
The Israeli army has arrested more than 200 people in southern Syria since December 2024. Al Jazeera reported that many were held in Sde Teiman military prison before being transferred to facilities run by the Israel Prison Service, including Ofer, al-Jalama (Kishon) and Megiddo.
The UN human rights office, OHCHR, reported allegations of torture and ill-treatment, including beatings, of Syrians detained by Israeli forces, and said detainees had been moved between several and unknown facilities, according to the UN human rights office. One man, Ahmed, told Al Jazeera he spent more than one year detained in Israel after being arrested at an Israeli military checkpoint in his village in Syria.
The UN presence has also been affected. In late August, two Israeli tanks and five other armoured vehicles blocked the only access road to UNDOF base 37 near Jubata al-Khashab. A UN probe has said some Israeli actions in Syria may amount to war crimes.
