‘Israeli’ forces enter southern Syria, Syrian media says

• ‘Israeli’ set up a checkpoint near Quneitra. 

‘Israeli’ military forces have moved into the Rasem Al-Halabi junction in the central Quneitra countryside of southern Syria and established a temporary checkpoint there, Syrian national broadcaster Al Ekhbariah reported.

According to the outlet, the force was made up of roughly 10 military vehicles. 

The report did not say how long the checkpoint would remain in place. The incursion is the latest in a series of ‘Israeli’ moves in southern Syria.

A long history of occupation

‘Israel's’ presence in Quneitra province is rooted in the 1967 Six-Day War, when it captured most of the Golan Heights from Syria. It effectively annexed the territory in 1981, a step the UN Security Council declared null and void in Resolution 497. 

Most of the international community still regards the Golan as occupied Syrian land, though the United States broke with that consensus in 2019 by recognizing ‘Israeli’ sovereignty over it.

After the 1973 war, a 1974 disengagement agreement created a UN-monitored buffer zone between ‘Israeli’ and Syrian forces, patrolled by the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). That arrangement largely held for decades and kept much of the Quneitra area free of significant military deployments.

Expansion after Assad's fall

The situation changed in December 2024, when Assad's government collapsed. ‘Israel’ moved troops into the buffer zone and beyond it, seized the strategic summit of Mount Hermon, and said the 1974 agreement no longer applied. 

‘Israeli’ officials justified the moves as necessary to prevent hostile forces from gaining a foothold near the border. Syria's authorities and a number of other governments condemned them as violations of Syrian sovereignty and of the disengagement accord.

Since then, ‘Israeli’ forces have carried out repeated incursions, patrols, and temporary deployments across Quneitra and neighboring areas, and the checkpoint reported at Rasem Al-Halabi fits that pattern. 

Each such move adds to concerns about the lasting erosion of the buffer zone and the prospect of a more permanent ‘Israeli' footprint on Syrian territory.

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