Intermittent Israeli military operations in southwestern Syria have been an ongoing reality since the invasion of December 2024, but usually only a handful of meaningful incidents any given month. During the past week, that number has been rising substantially.
The monitor Syrian Record Center reported that they’d documented at 59 distinct Israeli violations within the Quneitra and Daraa Governorates of Syria in just the past week, including six checkpoints established by IDF troops and 19 incursions.
The incursions have involved more raids of civilian homes than they generally do as well, with the raids on Sunday alone ending with the capture of at least five civilians, arrested for unknown reasons by the troops during raids of their houses.
IDF troops operating in Quneitra Governorate | Image from SOHR
Four of the civilians were captured in Jbata al-Khashab, in the northern part of the Quneitra Governorate. Two were described as children, and all four were ultimately released a few hours afterwards seemingly without further incident.
The fifth person was captured further south in Quneitra, in the village of Sayda al-Hanout, and there has yet to be a report if they were released or not. Notably, the IDF has not commented on any of the incident, nor explained why they “arrested” five people at all.
This has been a recurring problem with Israeli operations in Syria, which rarely involve comments to the Israeli media to describe what’s going on or why. As the number of operations grow significantly, it will be increasingly difficult for the IDF to keep such operations out of the news.
