UN Commissioner Fionnuala Ní Aoláin has issued a new report to the UN Human Rights Council related to Israeli military operations in southwest Syria, warning that the operations are increasingly impacting Syrian civilians in ways that could amount to war crimes under international law.
Ni Aoláin said the commission had identified 49 people, including two children, who Israel had captured through June of this year and had transferred across the border. The fates of many of those detainees remain unknown, as they are being held incommunicado.
Israeli officials expressed anger at the report, calling it an “Israel-bashing session” and insisting that because Israel purports to have no territorial ambitions within Syria, it was unfair for the commission to term their actions a “belligerent occupation.” They added they were only occupying 0.1% of Syria, which is inaccurate if one considers the Golan Heights is also considered Syrian, and has also been occupied by Israel for a generation.
IDF troops enter Quneitra Governorate | image from SOHR
The rate of cross-border operations into Syria has been escalating for some time now. In the past week, 59 distinct Israeli violations of Syrian territory were reported, and even more were reported in the last 24 hours, with troops entering villages and searching civilian homes in several locations around Quneitra Governorate.
Today, the operations turned focus to al-Mualaquah, a village in Quneitra where the IDF raided and established a checkpoint near the local school. The checkpoint remained for around a half an hour, before the troops withdrew.
Troops also entered the area near the village of Jamlah, in western Daraa Governorate, advancing into the area briefly before withdrawing. It’s unclear what the purpose of either of these operations were, as the IDF has not commented on either.
