Early Sunday morning, Israeli troops in armored vehicles advanced into multiple villages in Syria’s southwestern Daraa Governorate. The troops were interrogating locals and searching multiple homes, claiming they were looking for weapons. No arrests were reported.
The villages targeted were Saysoun and Jamlah. They are directly across from the demilitarized zone between Syria and Israel, which Israeli forces invaded back in December. Raids by Israeli forces have become increasingly common across the frontier, with Israeli troops entering villages more or less with impunity.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement through the state media agency condemning the raids as a violation of international law and accused Israel of attempting to “destabilize southern Syria.” Israel has not commented on the operations, and often doesn’t in the case of Syrian incursions.
Israel Katz meets with Israeli troops atop the summit of Mount Hermon, Syria, on January 28, 2025. (Ariel Hermoni/Defense Ministry)
This comes just days after Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa talked about ongoing talks with Israel on state media, saying a deal was being worked on which would see Israel leave the territory it has occupied since December.
The demilitarized zone was created in the 1974 disengagement agreement, and Sharaa reported that Israel argued it assumed the agreement no longer existed after the previous Syrian government was ousted in December. Sharaa says it is his goal to return to the situation Israel and Syria were in before December 8.
This wasn’t an ideal situation at any rate, as the two nations were in a state of war then, and Israel regularly carried out attacks on Syria even before December, though the attacks and ground raids have only grown since then. The ongoing talks are seen as trying to restore a state of relative calm, but not necessarily to end the state of war or the active Israeli occupation of Syrian territory in the Golan Heights.
Though the talks continue to be ongoing, some Israeli officials have publicly ruled out withdrawing from any Syrian territory they’ve seized recently. Defense Minister Israel Katz notably said a few weeks ago that the IDF would retain control of Mount Hermon, formerly in the demilitarized zone, citing “threats” posed by Syria.
