The Israeli campaign on the Syrian border region raises fears that it plans to stay

Israeli soldiers raided Syrian border villages, prompting nervous residents to gather in their homes. They have seized the country’s highest peak, erected roadblocks between Syrian cities and now overlook local villages from former Syrian military sites.

Amazing The fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad long agoended a chapter in the country’s decade-long civil war. But it was also a beginning for Israel Incursion into the border areaThis is what Israel described as a temporary defensive move to protect its security.

Thousands of Syrians now live in areas at least partially controlled by Israeli forces, leaving many concerned about how long the campaign will last. Israeli forces arrested some residents and opened fire during at least two protests against the raids. According to The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is an independent observer.

At least some Syrians now say they fear the Israeli presence will become a long-term military occupation.

“We are the only part of the country that couldn’t really celebrate the fall of the Assad regime — because even with the fall of the tyrant, the Israeli army came,” Shaher al-Nuaimi, who lives in the border village, lamented. Khan Arnabeh, which was stormed by the Israeli occupation forces.

Israel and Syria have fought multiple conflicts, but for decades, the border between the two countries has been largely quiet. The last time they went to war was in 1973, when Syria and Egypt attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism. The two sides then agreed to create a demilitarized buffer zone guarded by UN peacekeepers that served as a de facto border.

But when Syrian rebels ousted Assad from power on December 8, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his country’s forces to move. “Control” of the buffer zoneHome to a number of Syrian villages. he He described it as a temporary step “To ensure that no hostile force is entrenched adjacent to the border with Israel” amid internal unrest in Syria and after the surprise Hamas-led attack from Gaza on October 7, 2023, which left some 1,200 people dead in Israel.

Israeli forces quickly took control of the summit of Mount Hermon, the highest mountain in Syria, and advanced along the buffer zone and beyond. At about the same time, Israel said so Run Hundreds of airstrikes across the country target fighter jets, tanks, missiles and other weapons belonging to Mr. Assad’s government.

The ongoing military campaign, especially the ground operation in the de facto border area, has sparked international accusations that Israel is violating a decades-old ceasefire. numerous The groups still control the territory in parts of the country as well as the new Syrian government in Damascus, with Turkish forces effectively controlling areas along the northern border and the Kurdish autonomous region in the northeast.

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that the Israeli army is operating in the border area “now similar to the West Bank, where it can enter and exit anywhere it wants and arrest whoever it wants.” In a phone interview.

Some Syrians said they hoped for good relations with Israel, noting their shared hostility toward Iran, which supports Mr. Assad’s regime. Israel also provided medical care to some Syrians within Israeli-controlled territory during the decade-long Syrian civil war, including residents of the border region.

“The medical treatment overcame some of the hostility that people felt,” said Dirar al-Bashir, a local leader in the Quneitra border region.

But Mr. Bashir and others also said that if the Israeli operation turned into a long-term occupation, it would spark more violence in a country exhausted by years of civil war. Israel is already in control A large part of the Golan HeightsThese are the lands that were under the control of Syria and which Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East War and subsequently annexed in a move that was not recognized by most of the international community.

“We want peace, but Israeli decision-makers seem to think they will achieve everything by force,” said Arsan Arsan, a resident of a Syrian village outside the buffer zone who helped coordinate between UN officials and local residents. “If they push people into a corner, things will explode, just like they did in Gaza.”

Israeli officers also entered the villages to meet local leaders and demand that they collect all the weapons in their towns and hand them over to the Israeli army, according to seven residents. They added that the towns mostly complied with the order, prompting Israeli soldiers to remove their rifles from the trucks.

Israel did not respond to requests for comment on specific accusations by local residents. But the Israeli army said on Wednesday that its forces had confiscated and destroyed weapons previously owned by the Syrian army, including anti-tank missiles and explosive devices.

Syrian residents and local leaders in the border area also said that Israeli military vehicles damaged water pipes and electrical cables around some villages, causing power outages and water outages.

Turki Al-Mustafa (62 years old) said that water has been cut off from his city of Al-Hamidiyeh since Israeli forces entered the buffer zone. He said that the forces allowed some water to enter by truck, but set up roadblocks around the town and ordered residents to enter and leave only at specific hours.

Mobile phone reception has also become intermittent in the buffer zone since the Israeli incursion, according to Ahmed Khrewish, 37, a resident of the town of Al-Rafid, making communication difficult.

“Everyone now lives with this fear of the Israeli army,” he said. “We don’t want things to escalate between us. We just want safety and security.”

Some Syrians protested the Israeli military presence and organized demonstrations in at least four villages. Two residents of the town of Suwaysa said that Israeli soldiers opened fire and wounded several people during a protest there on December 25.

Ziad Al-Fahili (43 years old), a resident, said of the demonstrators, “They were unarmed and chanting slogans against the Israeli deployment in the area.” “At first, the soldiers fired into the air, but when the crowd continued to walk towards them, they opened fire on the demonstrators.”

The Israeli army said that its forces fired “warning shots” in Suez and that it was looking into reports that civilians had been harmed.

Even before Assad’s fall, Israel was concerned about Iranian-backed militias gaining a foothold along the Syrian border. Israeli warplanes regularly bomb Iranian officials and their allies in Syria as part of a years-long shadow war between the two sides.

The decision to send troops reflects concerns about the possibility of surprise attacks on Israel, such as the one that led to the 1973 war, as well as the attack from Gaza in 2023. This has led to Israel’s wars with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, along with Israeli air strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria long before Assad’s ouster.

“Israel is closely monitoring the situation in Syria and will not jeopardize its security,” Gideon Saar, Israeli Foreign Minister, said this month. We will not allow another October 7 to happen on any front.”

The new Syrian leadership criticized the Israeli military moves. Critics abroad, including several Arab countries and France, described Israel’s actions as a violation of the decades-long truce and called on Israel to withdraw. Egypt accused Israel “Exploiting the current state of instability in Syria to expand its regional control and impose a new reality on the ground.”

Israeli officials say they will not withdraw until “new arrangements” are put in place along the border. Given the chaotic internal situation in Syria, this could take months or even longer.

In Kudana, a small Syrian village outside the buffer zone, Israeli armored vehicles arrived a few days after Assad’s fall, according to mayor Maher al-Tahan. He said Israeli forces asked village leaders to broadcast a message over mosque loudspeakers ordering Kudana’s roughly 800 residents to hand over any weapons.

Since then, he added, the Israeli army has brought in electric generators and set up temporary barracks in the hills overlooking Kodana. But since most of Kodana’s wells are located on hilltops, he and other residents have resorted to buying expensive trucked-in water rather than pumping it from the ground.

“The Israeli army must leave as soon as possible,” Mr. Al-Tahhan said. As long as they remain here, the problems on both sides will simply continue to grow.”