LONDON: Israeli forces detained five people during raids in the southern Syrian countryside of Quneitra, in what has become a near-daily military activity since December 2024.
An Israeli force entered the village of Sayda Al-Hanout in southern Quneitra shortly after midnight on Sunday. It detained a young man before taking him to the occupied Syrian Golan, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.
Israeli forces also rounded up four people from the town of Jabata Al-Khashab in the northern Quneitra countryside early on Sunday, according to SANA.
The Syrian government has repeatedly highlighted that Israel is breaching the 1974 Disengagement Agreement, which separated the warring forces after the 1967 war.
It demanded an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights, as well as from the UN demilitarized buffer zone, which Israel seized in December 2024 in the aftermath of Bashar Al-Assad regime’s collapse.
Since then, Israel has detained dozens of Syrians as it conducted raids and established checkpoints at several junctions and main roads between Syrian towns in the southern part of the country.
Israel controls about 665 sq. kilometers of Syrian territory, primarily in the Daraa and Quneitra regions, including the UN demilitarized buffer zone of about 400 sq. kilometers. It also controls another 1,800 sq. kilometers of the Golan Heights since 1967, which it annexed in the 1980s, and the US recognized as part of Israel in 2019.
