Israeli forces have advanced into the Quneitra area of Syria's occupied Golan Heights and set up two military checkpoints, an Al Jazeera correspondent on the ground reports. The Israeli military operation on Saturday took place in the villages of Ain Ziwan and al-Ajraf in the southern part of the country. For months, Israeli forces have conducted near-daily incursions into southern Syria, particularly in the Quneitra governorate, carrying out arrests, erecting checkpoints, and bulldozing land, all of which have prompted growing public anger and unrest.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war and later illegally annexed the area, a move recognised by the United States but rejected by most of the international community. Then, after the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, it reneged on a 1974 agreement and expanded further into Syrian territory, seizing areas including the whole of Jabal al-Sheikh, a mountain that commands views over northern Israel and southern Syria.
Local sources told Al Jazeera on Friday that nine Syrians people were killed and others wounded in Israeli artillery and missile strikes targeting the town of Beit Jinn. Clashes between the residents and the invading Israeli force erupted after the incursion. Several Israeli soldiers were reportedly injured. Israeli sources initially reported that two of its soldiers were wounded, while two Syrian civilians were killed.
Israel has launched hundreds of strikes across Syria following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime last December. Six Syrian army officers have been killed in Israeli drone strikes south of Damascus, Syria's state-run El Ekhbariya TV reported, a day after Syria condemned a new Israeli military incursion outside the capital. Israeli drones targeted Syrian army positions in the Damascus countryside near the city of al-Kiswah, the broadcaster reported early on Wednesday.
