According to information from a correspondent for Syrian national television, Israeli troops arrested four Syrian citizens, carried out household registrations and were placed on the roofs of several homes, while combat aircraft flew over the governments of Deraa and Quneitra, in a clear escalation of military provocations on the part of the occupier.
The Israeli incursion coincided with the publication of a new report from the international organization Human Rights Watch (HRW), which reported that Israeli forces had committed war crimes in southern Syria, including forced displacements of civilians, demolitions of homes and illegal appropriation of properties.
According to HRW, since December 8, 2024, Israel has progressively penetrated the demilitarized zone supervised by the United Nations, which separates the Syrian Golán occupied since 1967 from the part of Quneitra under the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic, establishing at least two military posts from Mount Hermon to areas west of Daraa.
HRW’s Syrian investigation team, Hiba Zayadin, noted that “Israeli military forces did not have free access to confiscate homes, demolish them and expel families”, and ensured that these actions did not respond to legitimate military needs, but were part of a pattern of repression similar to that applied by Tel Aviv in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Zayadin stated that these measures violate fundamental principles of the international humanitarian law and continue to impede the return of tens of thousands of Syrian citizens displaced from Golan Heights since 1967, which represents a flagrant violation of the right to return recognized by multiple international resolutions.
Before these events, HRW urges world governments to suspend all types of military support to Israel while serious and systematic abuses persist.
The NGO also called for reviewing bilateral cooperation with the occupying State and prohibiting trade with illegal settlements, including those established in the occupied Syrian Golan.
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