According to local residents, the Zionist military, backed by tanks, armoured vehicles and bulldozers, invaded the villages of Jamla and Maaraba in Deraa.

This comes a day after Tel Aviv troops did something similar in the villages of Mazraat Beit Jinn and Mughr Al-Mir in the far southwest of that Damascus Countryside province.

In response to this invasion, residents of the area took to the streets in an anti-occupation demonstration, raising national flags and chanting “Get out, Israel.”

During the protest, Israeli forces opened fire on the crowd from the hilltops where they were positioned, injuring one person with a shot to the leg.

Pictures circulated on social media showed a young man being shot for protesting and approaching an Israeli position.

The occupation army admitted in a statement that it had opened fire on the protesters.

Following the overthrow of the government of Bashar Al-Assad on the 8th of this month, Israel intensified its air strikes to destroy the military infrastructure and remaining facilities of the Syrian army and expanded its occupation of the Golan.

The Zionist government also announced the collapse of the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement with Syria and occupied the demilitarised buffer zone of the Golan Heights as well as Mount Hermon, and then its army entered the countryside of Deraa and Quneitra.

On December 8, Islamist opposition groups took control of Damascus after the Syrian army withdrew, while then president Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, which granted him “humanitarian asylum”, ending 61 years of Baath Party rule.

mh/ro/fm