The incidents of Israeli forces shooting Syrian civilians inside Syrian territory have continued to grow today, with reports that, after three were shot earlier this week in two separate incidents, a fourth was shot, wounded, and ultimately detained on Wednesday.
The latest incident took place in the northern Quneitra town of Jabata al-Khashab, a town which has seen a lot of Israeli incursions over the past several months. Today, however, the troops shot and injured a young man who was described as having a disability, before detaining him and withdrawing.
The man was shot in the leg, or by some recountings the foot, and was only held for a few hours before being released back to the town from which he was taken. His condition has yet to be reported since his release.
Israeli military vehicles along the frontier with Syria | Image from SOHR
Also noteworthy is that while the IDF issued statements regarding the shootings earlier this week, aiming to frame the victims as “suspects” being neutralized by force of arms, the IDF has yet to comment at all on today’s shooting.
Other incursions by the IDF were reported in Daraa Governorate, where a patrol was seen near the Yarmouk River Basin village of Jamleh, and Israeli troops also were reported to have stopped and interrogated farmers in Wadi al-Raqqad, though none were arrested.
While Israel routinely conducts multiple cross-border operations any given day and extralegal detentions are unfortunately not unusual, the shootings had been exceedingly rare until this week, raising a concern that this may be another new normal within Syria’s rural southwest.
