Southern Syria: Israeli incursions, arrests, and restrictions impose a new reality on the population

On the morning of April 25, 2024, Hassan Ahmed’s family was living a normal day in their village of Jabata al-Khashab on the border with Israel.

Family members are drinking their coffee, while Hassan prepares to go to work, before he receives a call informing him that Israeli soldiers entered his agricultural land and arrested his son Saddam, who was seventeen years old at the time.

Hassan says that the soldiers tied his son and blindfolded him, before informing him that his presence in the place constituted, according to them, an attack on the territory of the State of Israel.

The village is located within a buffer zone between Syria and Israel. It is part of Syrian territory and includes villages inhabited by Syrians, while the 1974 Disengagement Agreement prohibits the presence of military forces from either side in it.

Hassan later learned that his son was detained in Ofer Prison, in a section designated for minors, and then he was transferred to the men’s section after he reached the legal age, before news of him stopped completely.

According to his father, Saddam has not been tried or charged yet.

Saddam's case does not appear to be an isolated case. According to government data obtained by the BBC, 43 Syrians are still detained in Israel, the majority of whom were arrested following the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Residents of the border areas say that the pace of Israeli incursions and arrests has escalated since the fall of the Assad regime, coinciding with the expansion of the Israeli military presence in southern Syria.

About a year after Saddam's arrest, Israeli forces arrested his cousin, Hassan Ibrahim Ahmed, from his family home during an incursion and raid into the same village.

When the Israeli army was asked about the cases of Saddam and Hassan, it said that the information available regarding Saddam is not sufficient to identify him or study his case, while it reported that Hassan was arrested on suspicion of involvement in activities it described as terrorist and of belonging to the so-called “Islamic State” organization, adding that he is currently detained by the Israeli Prison Service.

But for residents of border villages, incursions are not limited to arrests.

With the expansion of the Israeli deployment in parts of Daraa and Quneitra, residents of the region say that they are facing increasing restrictions on movement and access to their agricultural lands, while raids, searches, and checkpoints have become a recurring part of their daily lives.

In the village of Maariya in the Daraa countryside, where Israeli forces have intensified incursions over the past months, Muhammad Damara describes to the BBC how daily life has changed.

It tells how residents tried to block roads in front of Israeli forces with stones, before bulldozers and bullets were used to open them, while threatening residents with punishment if they intercepted the soldiers' movements.

Damara says that, according to his testimony, residents were insulted and beaten during detention operations, and that Israeli forces prevented residents from reaching large areas of their land, while some residents lost their livestock.

He added that the entry of Israeli forces into residential areas created a feeling of fear, especially among children: “Our children are now afraid to sleep lest they wake up and find an Israeli gun pointed at their heads.”

Damara says that the use of drones and the bombs they launch has increased residents' fears.

As for Sahar Al-Ghaith, a resident of Maariya in the Daraa countryside, she believes that the repeated raids day and night made life unstable, and that restrictions on movement led her to leave agricultural crops on her land until they spoiled, and to lose everything she aspired to gain.

She says that the current planting season was not possible for her, after Israeli forces opened fire directly at farmers inside the lands where they were planting and harvesting.

She adds that some people were forced to sell their livestock after losing part of them, and that the decline in agricultural and pastoral production was reflected in the availability of products such as milk and yoghurt, which have become rare and difficult to obtain.

Al-Ghaith recalled that fear is no longer linked to the timing of the incursion only, but has become part of life inside homes, as some family members stay awake during the night in anticipation of any new raid: “Our fate is suspended. Every hour we say now, they will expel us from our homes.”

Al-Ghaith says that whoever refuses the inspections may subject their home to more harsh measures, adding: “The Israeli army brings in dogs that excrete their droppings on the carpets and mattresses, and sometimes we, as women with our children, are forced to stand in the cold by force during the inspections.”

Regarding these accusations, the Israeli army told the BBC that its forces are operating within the buffer zone in southern Syria with the aim of protecting Israeli citizens. He added that his operations are carried out in accordance with international law, and that he seeks, whenever possible, to avoid harming agricultural lands and private property.

Nine bases...an expanding military presence

What the residents are experiencing on the ground coincides with a clear change in the nature of the Israeli military presence in southern Syria.

Since the fall of the Assad regime on December 8, 2024, Israel has expanded its presence inside Syrian territory, crossing in some locations the buffer zone that has separated the two sides since the 1974 disengagement agreement.

Under that agreement, a buffer zone, or separation zone, was established between the Golan Heights occupied by Israel and Syrian territory, extending 75 kilometers from north to south and with a width ranging between 200 meters and 10 kilometers. Syria assumes civil administration, while the Syrian army remains outside its borders.

The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) is stationed inside the region, which is responsible for monitoring the ceasefire between the two parties.

According to Amnesty International, Israel has established nine military bases in the Quneitra and Daraa governorates since the fall of the Assad regime.

Information obtained by the BBC indicates that four of these bases are located outside the buffer zone, while their construction was accompanied by construction work that suggests that the Israeli military presence goes beyond temporary field deployment.

Satellite images also show construction and expansion work in a number of these sites, which have been turned into military points within the buffer zone and neighboring Syrian lands.

Faltering negotiations

At a time when the military presence on the ground is expanding, the Syrian and Israeli authorities are trying to reach a new security agreement with American mediation, but the talks have faltered due to disagreements related to security arrangements and the limits of Israeli withdrawal.

In August 2026, direct communication between the two sides resumed, when Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani met with the head of the Israeli Mossad, Roman Goffman, in Jordan, to discuss reducing the escalation and reviving negotiations.

Al-Shaibani says that at the beginning of the year, the two sides reached an understanding, in principle and on paper, regarding most security arrangements, including security zones in the south and a buffer zone in which only United Nations forces are deployed.

But Damascus doubts Israel's willingness to implement what has been reached.

From Beit Jinn to Abu Al-Dhuhur... ongoing operations

Israeli military operations are not limited to the border area, but have extended to other areas inside Syria.

In November 2025, Israeli forces carried out an operation in the town of Beit Jinn in the Damascus countryside, during which at least 13 people were killed, according to the Syrian transitional authorities.

Israel said at the time that the operation targeted members of an Islamic group that was planning to carry out attacks against it, while the Syrian authorities described it as one of the bloodiest Israeli operations since the fall of Assad.

In August 2026, the scope of the Israeli strikes extended to northern Syria, when they targeted the Abu al-Duhur air base near Idlib, at a time when tensions were rising over the Turkish presence inside Syria.

Israel: Existence indefinitely

Since the first days of Assad's fall, Israel has not presented its new military deployment as a temporary measure.

In January 2025, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz explained, during a visit to Mount Hermon, that Israeli forces would remain in the buffer zone for an “indefinite period,” justifying this by the need to prevent the presence of hostile forces near the border, stressing Israel’s desire to keep southern Syria demilitarized.

In the latest development, on September 9, the Syrian government condemned the entry of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into Syrian territory and his inspection of sites in Mount Hermon, considering this a violation of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and called for an end to the incursions and a return to the 1974 disengagement agreement.

Netanyahu had visited Mount Hermon, accompanied by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Deputy Chief of Staff Tamir Yedai, and said that Israel has absolute control over the area extending from Mount Hermon to the Yarmouk River, stressing that his country will not allow, as he described it, the establishment of a “terrorist army” on its borders.

He adds that detainees are transferred to facilities inside Israel for interrogation, examination, and detention, as part of operations that are subject, according to him, to Israeli law, military rules, and international law.

He says that he released detainees who were not proven to be involved in terrorist activities and returned them to Syria, and that the detainees are subject to either the criminal law or preventive detention procedures under what is known as the “Unlawful Combatants Law,” and they are also subject to judicial review according to the legal framework under which they are detained, and that Israeli law allows them legal representation and appeal before the Supreme Court.

Houses and lands...a price that goes beyond military operations

In turn, international human rights organizations say that the repercussions of the Israeli military presence do not stop at arrests or combat operations, but rather extend to property, the movement of residents, and their sources of livelihood.

Amnesty International says it documented the destruction or damage of at least 23 civilian buildings in three villages in Quneitra during the six months that followed the start of the Israeli incursion.

But for the residents of the border villages, these transformations are not measured by the number of bases or incursion sites, but rather by what has been lost in their daily lives.