Israel in Syria: ‘Permanent’ fortifications and attempts to win over residents

DARAA/PARIS — “Around this time, our cars would usually be leaving the Yarmouk Valley brimming with zucchini, beans and tomatoes. This year, the Israeli occupation has stopped us, destroying our livelihoods,” Daraa farmer Bassam Damara, 45, said. 

Damara lives in Maariya, a village just a few kilometers from the point where the Syrian, Jordanian and Israeli borders meet in southwestern Syria. People here rely on agriculture and livestock to make a living, activities that have been nearly impossible since Israel’s incursion began last December. So far, Damara estimates his losses at around 20 million Syrian pounds ($2,000 at the current parallel market exchange rate of SYP 10,000 to the dollar).

Israel’s invasion of southern Syria, which began hours after opposition forces toppled the Assad regime on December 8, 2024, appears to have no end in sight. Tel Aviv’s forces have not only seized control of the demilitarized border zone along the occupied Golan Heights—violating a 1974 armistice agreement—but advanced beyond it, pushing into Daraa and Quneitra provinces, as well as Mount Hermon on the Syrian-Lebanese border. 

In the most recent escalation, Israeli warplanes struck a number of former regime military sites in Daraa and Reef Dimashq provinces on Tuesday night. At the same time, Israeli ground forces advanced to the al-Majahid barracks near al-Bakar, a village in the western Daraa countryside. 

Syria Direct’s correspondent Emad Albasiri, who visited the al-Majahid barracks hours later on Wednesday morning, found Israeli forces “blew up an old piece of artillery from 1979 and destroyed underground [cement] blocks” before withdrawing. The overnight operation appears to be an extension of efforts to systematically “destroy the infrastructure of the new Syrian army,” he added.

When Israel first launched its incursion on December 8, it struck hundreds of military sites and assets across the country, wiping out much of its arsenal in an operation it dubbed “Bashan Arrow” in reference to a biblical name for southwestern Syria.

The current depth of Israel’s incursion into Syria ranges from two to 10 kilometers. Occupying forces have equipped and fortified military positions, built new roads and prevented residents from farming or grazing their livestock nearby, raising questions about how long it plans to stay. 

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not allow any presence of the new Syrian army’s forces in southern Syria’s Quneitra, Daraa and Suwayda provinces. The concluding statement of Syria’s national dialogue conference on Tuesday—hours before the latest strikes—denounced Netanyahu’s statements as “provocative,” calling the incursion a “flagrant violation of Syria’s sovereignty” and demanding an “immediate and unconditional” withdrawal. 

Israeli soldiers stand in front of an armored vehicle in the Quneitra countryside village of Dawaya al-Saghira, 25/12/2025 (Emad Albasiri/Syria Direct)

‘We will not leave our land’

Residents of Maariya, where Damara lives, had barely begun to celebrate the fall of the Assad regime on December 8 when Israeli forces rolled in, deploying inside the village and setting up military checkpoints. After villagers protested their presence, the occupying forces withdrew to a former regime military position on the outskirts of Maariya, known as the al-Jazira Company. 

Soon, prefabricated rooms were brought to the Israeli position. Barriers went up and were reinforced, and lighting was installed, Albasiri observed during repeated visits and meetings with residents. 

In recent weeks, Israeli forces “repeatedly summoned village notables through loudspeakers or via WhatsApp messages, offering to provide food aid, electricity and water services and construct schools and hospitals,” Albasiri said. These offers were rejected, as was a new offer this week promising “job opportunities and employment,” he added. 

As time passed and the economic situation in Maariya worsened, Damara tried to reach his land, farm equipment and beehives in the Yarmouk Valley, but—like other residents—was stopped by Israeli forces. During his attempt, he saw farm equipment sitting “broken” in the valley, as well as “land and crops destroyed after occupation soldiers built new roads on them.”

Earthen berms fortify Israeli forces’ position just outside the village of Maariya in Daraa’s southwestern Yarmouk Basin region, which Israeli forces have controlled since the regime fell in December 2024, 23/2/2025 (Emad Albasiri/Syria Direct)

In addition to losing his crops and farm equipment, Zayed al-Salem, 47, another farmer in Maariya, now has debt he cannot repay. He was waiting for the harvest to settle accounts with stores he bought seeds and seedlings from.  

Al-Salem’s family has lost more than their livelihood. His 14-year-old son was shot by Israeli forces during a demonstration in Maariya in late December, and lost an eye. “We rushed my child to Damascus on a motorcycle after he was injured, because there are no cars or fuel to operate them,” al-Salem told Syria Direct. “He had an operation, but lost his eye.” 

“We are confined inside the village, to an area of less than three square kilometers, barred from entering our land,” al-Salem said. There are “more than 3,000 dunums belonging to residents that the occupation prevents farmers from entering,” he added. “There is nowhere to graze our flocks, which have no food, and our beehives are still in the valley.” 

While Israeli forces are stationed outside the village itself, soldiers often roam the village at night, preventing residents from moving about and shooting live bullets and flares. “Our children are terrified. They have nightmares from the fear and the sound of the bullets and bombs fired by occupation soldiers,” al-Salem said. “They need psychological treatment.”

“The occupation is pressuring us, tightening the noose so we leave. We will not leave our land, even if all life is cut off. We want the Golan [Heights] too, we cannot forget it,” he added. 

Damara appealed to “United Nations bodies and Arab states to help rid us of the occupation and remove it from our land.” 

Quneitra rejects Israeli offers

The situation is similar in Quneitra province, where Israeli forces have deployed to several military sites in the areas of Jubata al-Khashab, Khan Arnabeh, al-Baath city and the Tal Ahmar Gharbi hill. There too, the occupying forces have set up prefabricated structures, built new roads and installed lighting. 

Tal Ahmar Gharbi, a hill where Israeli forces are stationed near the Quneitra countryside town of Kudna. On the right-hand slope, a bulldozer fortifies the site, 1/1/2025 (Emad Albasiri/Syria Direct)

A closer view of an Israeli bulldozer constructing fortifications on Tal Ahmar Gharbi, a hill in the Quneitra countryside, 1/1/2025 (Emad Albasiri/Syria Direct)

In the Quneitra countryside village of Kudna, “an Israeli patrol comes down every few days from Tal Ahmar Gharbi,” which borders the town, and roams through the streets, resident Zaid al-Tahhan, 40, told Syria Direct. 

Last week, the patrol conducted a survey. Israeli forces stood in the town square and asked for “the names and phone numbers of shop owners and those responsible for the mosque and the water pump, as well as the medical point—a small, modest trailer—and its staff,” al-Tahhan said. 

Kudna, like other villages and towns that Israeli forces have entered, is “without drinking water,” al-Tahhan said. “The occupation forces destroyed the wells and stopped the pumping of water through the network.” Soldiers “fire on anyone who approaches” Tal Ahmar Gharbi within a radius of “more than two kilometers,” he added. 

“Usually, we sow a winter crop but this year occupation forces prevented us from cultivating our land and grazing in the area of the hills, which was our pasture,” al-Tahhan said. Israeli forces currently control more than 2,000 dunums of land belonging to Kudna residents. 

Journalist Nour Jolan, who lives in Quneitra, said Israeli forces have “vandalized farmland, bulldozed olive trees and some forests, stopped farmers from reaching their land, harassed sheep herders and detained a number of young men” as well as “destroying some houses and water pumps.” 

Offers to Quneitra residents of “relief aid, infrastructure services, support for clinics and electricity” have been refused, Jolan added. More recently, Tel Aviv’s forces offered work opportunities—which has also been reported by Israeli media. 

Jolan said some residents of the northern Quneitra towns of Hadar and Jarfa accepted and “put their names down to enter and work in Israel, citing the deteriorating living situation,” which he decried as “the start of normalization.” Syria Direct could not independently verify this claim. 

Jolan called on Syria’s new government to swiftly establish “military points in the buffer zone, with backing from countries friendly to and allied with Israel, to prevent it from taking advantage of the pretext that it is accepted by some weak individuals” to justify an extended occupation. 

Permanent fortifications? 

Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country’s military would remain in the Mount Hermon area and the buffer zone for “an unlimited period of time.” He also demanded that southern Syria’s Daraa, Quneitra and Suwayda provinces be “demilitarized.” 

Tel Aviv would not “allow the presence of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or any new Syrian military forces south of Damascus,” and would “not tolerate any threat to the Druze community in southern Syria,” he added. 

The same day, Israel’s Minister of Defense Israel Katz said Israeli forces would remain stationed indefinitely in the buffer zone with Syria. “The IDF will not allow hostile forces to base themselves in the security zone in southern Syria, from here to the Suwayda-Damascus highway [some 70 kilometers from the occupied Golan Heights], and we will act against any threat,” he told cadets at a graduation ceremony.

Following Netanyahu’s statements, demonstrations broke out in southern Syria rejecting Israeli occupation and demanding a withdrawal. 

Over the two days between these remarks and Tuesday night’s airstrikes in Daraa and Reef Dimashq, the skies over Daraa and Quneitra saw a heavy presence of military and reconnaissance aircraft, Albasiri said. “Monday was the busiest day for Israeli aircraft since the incursion began,” he noted.

Israeli forces have installed nine “permanent” military sites within Syrian territory since the invasion began late last year. “Anyone who sees the military points on Tal Ahmar Gharbi and the Israeli preparations there—roads, fortifications, lighting—knows they will not leave,” al-Tahhan said. 

Syria Direct’s correspondent noted the same, based on his observations at military points in Maariya, Tal Ahmar Gharbi, Mount Hermon and Jubata al-Khashab. 

The nine bases serve as “Israeli defensive positions within Syrian territory, from which it conducts patrols and incursions into Syria ranging between 15 and 20 kilometers, using military bulldozers, hummers and four-wheel-drive vehicles,” journalist Jolan said. 

“The bases are well-lit after the installation of electricity poles, the preparation of prefabricated rooms, paving of roads and significant reinforcement and fortification,” Jolan added. “By my observations, there will be no Israeli withdrawal from the demilitarized zone in the near future,” he added. Still, he downplayed the likelihood of a “permanent presence,” saying Israel “wants international guarantees concerning the security of its borders with Syria.” 

The new Syrian government’s General Security Forces, affiliated with the Ministry of Interior, have a presence in Quneitra city and the surrounding countryside through local personnel. However, they carry out their role “without displaying their weapons,” Albasiri said. 

The same forces are present “at the governorate building in Quneitra, which [Israeli] occupation forces withdrew from 20 days ago, with hidden weapons, 300 meters from occupation forces,” he added. “General Security is more widely deployed in Baath city and Khan Arnabeh in northern Quneitra, despite the Israeli presence there.” 

Israeli soldiers stand in front of an armored vehicle in Dawaya al-Saghira, a village in the Quneitra countryside, 25/12/2025 (Emad Albasiri/Syria Direct)

Has the 1974 agreement collapsed?

Two days after Assad fell, Netanyahu declared the 1974 disengagement agreement between the two countries had “collapsed” and confirmed he ordered his forces to seize the buffer zone. 

Syria and Israel entered into an armistice agreement in 1974, under which Israel withdrew from all areas it occupied during the 1973 war and some areas it occupied in 1967. The parties agreed to establish a roughly 75-kilometer buffer zone within Syrian territory along the border strip: from Mount Hermon in the north to the Syrian-Jordanian-Israeli border triangle in the south, with a width ranging from 200 meters to 10 kilometers. Syria assumed civil administration of the area, with no military presence, while the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) was deployed to maintain the ceasefire. 

“International agreements concluded by countries in accordance with international law are not tied to the official figures representing the signatory countries,” lawyer al-Mumin Billah al-Khobby told Syria Direct. “They are intrinsically and substantively linked to the state as a whole, regardless of the form of government or whether the agreement was signed under a particular president or in a certain era.” 

A position held by Israeli forces just outside the western Daraa village of Maariya, 23/2/2025 (Emad Albasiri/Syria Direct)

The 1974 agreement is “valid, even if the ruling regime in the Syrian Arab Republic fell,” al-Khobby said. Israel’s invasion and occupation “breached and violated the agreement in full view of the UNDOF,” he added. “This act is a flagrant violation of international law, norms and agreements.” 

Syria Direct reached out to Damascus with questions about Israel’s ongoing incursion and the transitional government’s stance, but received no response by the time of publication. 

Some of Israel’s acts within Syria “amount to war crimes,” the lawyer added. “At times, it detains Red Crescent medics carrying out humanitarian activities, and at other times it kidnaps some sheep herders from the villages.” 

Impacted residents “must submit complaints to the UNDOF in Quneitra to remove the occupation entity from the agricultural lands that are their livelihood,” al-Khobby said. “The Syrian government must intensify its diplomatic and international efforts, as well as through the UN Security Council and General Assembly, to look into the reality of Quneitra province and its people. The situation is becoming increasingly dangerous.” 

This report was originally produced in Arabic and translated into English by Mateo Nelson.