UPDATE - Israeli forces stage new incursion into Quneitra, southern Syria

UPDATES WITH DETAILS

By Mustafa Haboush and Rania Abu Shamala

ISTANBUL (AA) - The Israeli army has pushed into southern Syria’s Quneitra province, marking the second such violation in two days.

Syria’s state-run Alikhbaria TV reported Friday that Israeli forces advanced around the village of Saida al-Hanout in rural Quneitra and set up a checkpoint separating the village from the nearby Maghatra farm, without providing further details.

Israeli forces also renewed their incursion into the countryside of Quneitra along the road linking Jabatha al-Khashab with the villages of Ain al-Bayda and Ofania, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).

An Israeli unit of two vehicles entered the road connecting those villages, stopped in the area and searched passing civilians.

SANA also said that three Israeli military vehicles had advanced towards western Saida al-Hanout and erected a checkpoint between the village and the farm.

Israeli incursions in Quneitra have recently intensified, with locals complaining of advances into their farmland, as well as the destruction of hundreds of acres of forests, arrests of residents, and the establishment of military checkpoints.

The Israeli army has carried out over 1,000 airstrikes on Syria and more than 400 cross-border raids into the southern provinces since December 2024, according to government data.

After the fall of the Assad regime in late 2024, Israel expanded its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights by seizing the demilitarized buffer zone, a move that violated the 1974 Disengagement Agreement with Syria.