Israeli soldiers stormed Syrian border villages, forcing nervous residents to gather in their homes. They have captured the country’s highest peak, set up roadblocks between Syrian cities and are now looking down on local villages from former Syrian military outposts.
Astounding the fall of longtime Syrian leader Bashar al-Assadit closed a decade-long civil war in the country. But it also marked the beginning of the Israeli incursion into the border areawhich Israel called a temporary defensive move to guarantee its own security.
Thousands of Syrians now live in areas at least partially controlled by Israeli forces, leaving many concerned about how long the campaign will last. Israeli troops detained some residents and opened fire during at least two protests against the raids, according to To the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an independent monitor.
At least some Syrians now say they fear the Israeli presence could become a long-term military occupation.
“We are the only part of the country that failed to truly celebrate the fall of the Assad regime – because even when the tyrant fell, the Israeli army came,” lamented Shaher al-Nuaimi, who lives in the border village of Khan Arnabeh, which was invaded by the Israeli army.
Israel and Syria have fought numerous conflicts, but for decades the border that separates them has been largely peaceful. The last time they went to war was in 1973, when Syria and Egypt attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day. After that, both sides agreed to create a demilitarized buffer zone to be patrolled by United Nations peacekeepers, which served as a de facto border.
But when Syrian rebels ousted Mr. al-Assad from power on December 8, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his country’s troops to “take over” the buffer zonehome to numerous Syrian villages. He called it a temporary relocation to “ensure that no hostile force is installed right next to the border with Israel” amid internal unrest in Syria and following a surprise attack from Gaza led by Hamas on October 7, 2023, which left around 1,200 people dead in Israel.
Israeli forces quickly captured the summit of Mount Hermon, the highest mountain in Syria, and advanced along the buffer zone and beyond. At about the same time, Israel said that conducted hundreds of airstrikes across the country targeting fighter jets, tanks, missiles and other weapons belonging to Mr. al-Assad’s government.
The continued military campaign, particularly the ground operation in the de facto border area, has fueled international accusations that Israel is violating the decades-old ceasefire.
The Israeli army operates in the border area “now much like in the West Bank, insofar as it can go in and out wherever it wants and arrest whoever it wants,” said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. in a telephone interview.
Some Syrians have said they hope for good relations with Israel, citing shared animosity toward Iran, which backs Mr. al-Assad. Israel has also provided medical care to some Syrians inside Israeli-held territory during the decades-long Syrian civil war, including those from the border area.
“The treatment broke through some of the hostility that people felt,” said Dirar al-Bashir, a local leader in the border region of Quneitra.
But Mr. al-Bashir and others also said that if the Israeli operation became a prolonged occupation, it would ignite further violence in a country exhausted by years of civil war. Israel is already in control a large part of the Golan Heightsterritory once held by Syria, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War and then annexed in a move not recognized by most of the international community.
“We want peace, but the decision-makers in Israel seem to think they will achieve everything by force,” said Arsan Arsan, a resident of a Syrian village outside the buffer zone who helped coordinate between UN officials and local residents. “If they corner people, things will explode, just like what happened in Gaza.”
Israeli officers also entered the villages to meet with local leaders and demand that they collect all weapons in their towns and hand them over to the Israeli army, according to seven residents. The towns mostly obeyed the order, prompting Israeli soldiers to take out rifles alongside the trucks, they said.
Israel did not respond to requests for comment on the specific allegations by local residents. But the Israeli military said on Wednesday that its forces had seized and destroyed weapons that had previously belonged to the Syrian army, including anti-tank missiles and explosive devices.
Syrian residents and local leaders in the border area also said Israeli military vehicles damaged water pipes and electrical cables around some villages, causing power and water outages.
Turki al-Mustafa, 62, said there has been no running water in his town of Hamidiyeh since Israeli troops entered the buffer zone. He said soldiers allowed some water to be trucked in, but set up roadblocks around the town, ordering residents to enter and exit only at certain times.
Cell phone reception has also become spotty in the buffer zone since the Israeli incursion, according to Ahmad Khreiwish, 37, a resident of Rafeed town, making communication difficult.
“Everyone now lives in fear of the Israeli army,” he said. “We don’t want things to escalate between us. We just want safety and security.”
Some Syrians protested the Israeli military presence, organizing demonstrations in at least four villages. Two residents of the town of Sweis said Israeli soldiers opened fire and wounded several people during a protest there on December 25.
“They were unarmed and shouting slogans against the Israeli deployment in the area,” one resident, Ziyad al-Fuheili, 43, said of the protesters. “At first the soldiers fired into the air, but when the crowd continued to march towards them, they fired at the demonstrators.”
Israel’s military said its forces had fired “warning rounds” in Sweisa and were looking into reports that civilians had been injured.
Even before the fall of Mr. al-Assad, Israel was concerned that Iranian-backed militias would gain a foothold along the Syrian border. Israeli warplanes regularly attack Iranian officials and their allies in Syria as part of a years-long shadow war between the two sides.
The decision to send troops reflects concerns about the possibility of surprise attacks on Israel, like the one that sparked the 1973 war, as well as an attack from Gaza in 2023. This fueled Israel’s wars with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, along with Israeli airstrikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria long before Mr. al-Assad.
“Israel is closely monitoring the situation in Syria and will not jeopardize its own security,” Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister, said this month. “We will not allow another October 7 on any front.”
The new leadership of Syria criticized the moves of the Israeli army. Critics abroad, including several Arab states and France, called Israel’s actions a violation of the decades-long ceasefire and called for Israel to withdraw. Egypt accused Israel “taking advantage of Syria’s current instability to expand its territorial control and impose a new reality on the ground.”
Israeli officials say they will withdraw only after “new agreements” along the border. Given the chaotic internal situation in Syria, this could take months or even longer.
In Kodan, a small Syrian village just outside the buffer zone, Israeli armored vehicles arrived just days after Mr. al-Assad, according to the mayor Maher al-Tahan. He said Israeli soldiers told the village’s leaders to broadcast a message over the mosque’s loudspeakers ordering the approximately 800 residents of Kodana to surrender their weapons.
Since then, the Israeli army has brought in generators and set up makeshift barracks in the hills overlooking Kodana, he said. But because most of Copenhagen’s wells are on hilltops, he and other residents said, they have turned to buying expensive trucked-in water instead of pumping it from the ground.
“The Israeli army must leave as soon as possible,” Mr al-Tahan said. “As long as they stay here, the problems on both sides are just going to keep growing.”
