Adding a new level of complexity to Israeli military activity in southwestern Syria, the IDF has now imposed a strict curfew on some villages within Quneitra, including Hodr. The curfew strictly forbids all non-locals from being within a given village after 7:00 pm.
The restriction includes a warning for all employers within the village to not employ people who reside in a different village as laborers, and threatens to hold the employers accountable if any of the laborers remain within the village after 7:00 pm.
This level of restriction is unprecedented in this area, where Israeli troops regularly raid the villages but have not made any attempt to formalize their military occupation. They do, however, regularly set up temporary checkpoints to check IDs, and have gone to efforts to seize paperwork and local records in the areas.
Israeli checkpoint in western Daraa Governorate | Image from SOHR
Recently, troops have disrupted construction efforts and similarly blocked Syrian farmers from accessing their lands. Many farmers have taken to acquiring ID cards from UNDOF, showing they are entitled to work those lands, though how well the IDF is accepting the UN cards is not yet clear, and making life inconvenient for the Syrian locals seems to be largely the point.
Adding to complications surrounding existing and new restrictions for the locals is that the IDF is making almost no public statements surrounding their activity in Syria, so exactly what their intentions are, what they’re doing and why they’re doing it is almost entirely opaque.
Israeli operations often include identifying passing locals, and summary detentions are increasingly common. The detainees are often released quickly, as indeed one of the Bariqah villagers captured yesterday was returned today, but some are held longer, at times over a year, and there appears to be no legal mechanism surrounding the process.
Multiple IDF incursions into Syria are reported any given day, with Quneitra Governorate the main focus of such operations, though at times the troops also enter Daraa or Rif Damasq Governorates.
