Syrians speak out against Israeli detentions in southern province
Israeli soldiers point guns at Syrians who gather to record their incursions that have become more brazen, frequent and violent.
Across Quneitra province, Israeli tanks have established checkpoints, and patrols have put up barriers. They stop and search civilians – some go missing.
Khadija Arnous says her husband was taken from his house in July, and that her brother-in-law, who was released from Sednaya prison after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, is also in Israeli custody.
“At 3am, Israeli forces took my husband and my brother-in-law. We’ve had no news from them since. Israeli soldiers ordered the men to leave the house and blindfolded them,” she says. “I have four children, and my husband was the sole provider. I urge the [Syrian] government to find a solution for us. Why are the Israelis coming and taking whoever they want?”
Israel describes them as security operations. Syrian authorities and human rights organisations call them abductions or unlawful arrests. As many as 40 people are reported to have been arrested in recent weeks.
Israeli army’s outposts on Syrian soil break ‘every international law on the books’
The Israeli military presence in a buffer zone between Israel and Syria violates “every international law on the books”, a political analyst has told Al Jazeera.
Since the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December last year, the Israeli army has established at least nine bases in the area, according to satellite images verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking unit, despite a 1974 agreement preventing such activity.
Speaking from Damascus, Ammar Khaf, from the Omran Centre for Strategic Studies, described the Israeli army outposts as “an added occupation to the Golan Heights”.
Khaf also decried Israel’s “complete destruction” of forests in the zone, as well as condemning the damage it had caused to people’s livelihoods.
The political analyst said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the area this week showed that he and his country were not being held to account.
“The Syrian government is trying to deal with it diplomatically and to exercise self-restraint,” Khaf said. “But there are people being forcibly displaced, abducted into Israeli prisons without charge.”
He argued that the UN most likely did not have any leverage over the situation in southern Syria, but that Damascus hoped to use its relations with the US, Russia and China to stop Israeli aggression on its soil.
