Jubbata al Khashab, Syria: From his field in southern Syria, Hassan Ahmad pointed at new Israeli fortification works as its military edged ever closer to his village, adjacent to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at this berm around 300 meters (around 980 feet) away, just after the trees,\u201d said Ahmad, 46, a farmer whose son and nephew were previously seized by Israel during its repeated incursions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Israelis recently restarted digging this line along the Golan Heights,\u201d said Ahmad, who keeps planting olive trees near the village of Jubbata Al-Khashab even though accessing his fields has become increasingly dangerous.<\/p>\n
Towering Israeli wind farms could be seen in the distance.<\/p>\n
Israel captured most of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and later annexed the areas under its control, a move only recognized by the United States and Colombia.<\/p>\n
Since the December 2024 ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria and sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone that had separated Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan since 1974.<\/p>\n
It has also carried out repeated incursions deeper into Syrian territory and has vowed to keep troops in a so-called \u201csecurity zone\u201d in southern Syria, where it seeks a broader demilitarised area.<\/p>\n
Mohammad Al-Saeed, an official in southern Syria\u2019s Quneitra province, said the Israeli army \u201crecently intensified construction operations\u201d in the buffer zone.<\/p>\n
Israeli forces are using \u201cbulldozers to dig trenches and berms and set up observation posts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u2018Terrible\u2019 situation <\/p>\n
The new Israeli line is being built \u201cbetween 200 meters and one kilometer\u201d beyond the ceasefire line established by a 1974 disengagement agreement, Saeed added.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Syria condemned the works as a \u201cflagrant breach\u201d of the agreement, reached after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.<\/p>\n
Israeli forces regularly carry out incursions into villages in the Quneitra area, around 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Damascus.<\/p>\n
Saeed said Israeli forces had seized 56 people in the area since Assad\u2019s toppling, while \u201c41 of them are still detained.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, five vehicles and an Israeli army ambulance entered Jubbata Al-Khashab, where Israeli forces shot a man after he tried to flee when he saw them, witnesses told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey hit him in the leg and took him away,\u201d said Mohammad Samia, a 65-year-old farmer from the village, which features old stone houses built with black basalt.<\/p>\n
The man was released a few hours later along with two others the Israeli army said it seized on Monday after they approached its troops.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation is terrible here. Israeli forces come and go. We\u2019re afraid because they shoot blindly,\u201d said Samia, who like other farmers complained about often being unable to access his crops.<\/p>\n
The Israeli army has installed a yellow barrier at the end of Jubbata Al-Khashab.<\/p>\n
\u2018Suspect\u2019 <\/p>\n
In nearby Khan Arnabeh, vehicles belonging to the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force traveled past children returning home from school.<\/p>\n
Police directed traffic, while security forces were stationed at intersections, but no Syrian army presence was visible.<\/p>\n
Syria\u2019s new leaders have condemned Israeli military action in the country\u2019s south but have refrained from responding with force.<\/p>\n
Despite the tensions, Syria and Israel have held several rounds of direct talks as they edge toward a security agreement.<\/p>\n
In Jaba, another village in the region, Khadija Shehadeh sobbed as she showed a photo of her son, Mohammad Dabbour, whom Israeli forces killed this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was 22. He was my only son and he supported us,\u201d said Shehadeh, surrounded by other women also wearing black.<\/p>\n
\u201cMay God take revenge on them,\u201d she added, referring to the Israeli army.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s army said on Monday that its troops had killed \u201ca suspect attempting to infiltrate\u201d a military post in the \u201csecurity zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Red Cross later handed Dabbour\u2019s body over to his family.<\/p>\n
He had been shot \u201cin the chest, shoulder, leg and foot,\u201d his uncle Mohammad Shehadeh said at his nephew\u2019s freshly dug grave.<\/p>\n
The circumstances surrounding the death of Dabbour, whose mother is Syrian and father was Palestinian, are unclear.<\/p>\n
His mother said he had no ties to any political group and that she was trying to find him a wife.<\/p>\n
But she said that before he disappeared on Sunday, he left her a message reading: \u201cI\u2019m sorry, mother. You won\u2019t see me anymore. Pray for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jubbata al Khashab, Syria: From his field in southern Syria, Hassan Ahmad pointed at new Israeli fortification works…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[69860,85,46,43,288672],"class_list":["post-640255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-golan-heights","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-southern-syria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}