2026-04-25T18:00:58+00:00
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Shafaq News-
Quneitra
On Saturday,
the Israeli military forces conducted raids, erected checkpoints, and
reinforced fixed positions across multiple axes in the Quneitra countryside in
southern Syria.
Shafaq News
correspondent reported that the Israeli troops deployed into the streets of
Jabatha al-Khashab before carrying out house searches after midnight. Three
trucks carrying prefabricated rooms also arrived at Tel Ahmar East in the
southern Quneitra countryside, as a further expansion of an existing
installation.
Intensive
Israeli warplane activity was also recorded over the area throughout the day.
The Quneitra
Media Directorate confirmed that the province had witnessed a 24-hour
escalation involving a series of Israeli military movements across several
axes. Three military vehicles accompanied by an ambulance entered the village
of Samdaniyeh al-Sharqiya, while a temporary Israeli checkpoint was established
between the village and al-Ajraf town. Israeli forces also took up position
inside an abandoned house east of al-Samdaniyeh al-Sharqiya, near Tel Krum,
from the early morning hours until the evening.
In Tal al-Ahmar
al-Sharqi, an Israeli force comprising two tanks and two military vehicles
subsequently entered the area late Saturday, taking up positions inside the
prefabricated structures delivered to the site the previous day.
Field sources
told Shafaq News that Israeli forces transferred three prefabricated rooms to
Tel Ahmar al-Sharqi on April 17, as part of the expansion of a base established
at the site following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad government and the
subsequent advance of Israeli forces into the buffer zone. The position carries
strategic significance due to its location along the separation line, the
sources said. The surrounding area had previously come under Israeli artillery
fire.
Tel Ahmar East
sits within the buffer zone established under the 1974 disengagement agreement
between Israel and Syria, a strip monitored by the United Nations Disengagement
Observer Force (UNDOF). Under that agreement, only UN peacekeepers are
authorized to operate within the separation area; military construction or
fortification by either party is prohibited.
Wider Pattern
of Expansion
Saturday’s movements
form part of a documented pattern of Israeli military entrenchment in southern
Syria that accelerated sharply after the fall of al-Assad’s government on
December 8, 2024.
A satellite
imagery analysis published in February 2026 by Al Jazeera’s digital
investigations unit found that Israeli forces had established control over 235
square kilometers inside the buffer zone and recorded more than 800 ground
incursion points inside Syrian territory, one of which reached within 20
kilometers of Damascus.
The same
analysis documented the construction of nine permanent military positions and
more than 32 kilometers of defensive fortifications, parts of which extended
more than 1,200 meters into the buffer zone.
Among those
positions, the installation on the summit of Mount Hermon —Jabal al-Sheikh— is
the most strategically significant. Its elevation provides simultaneous
observation capacity over the Jordan Valley and Galilee to the west and the
eastern approaches to Damascus.
Israeli forces
have also crossed the Alpha Line —the boundary between Israeli-occupied
territory and the buffer zone— advancing to the Bravo Line on the Syrian side,
in breach of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement, the analysis found.
The Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights documented 620 Israeli ground incursions between
December 2024 and February 2026, describing the period as one of the most
dangerous since the conflict began and citing the absence of any effective
deterrent response. The observatory noted that Quneitra and Daraa provinces
have borne the heaviest burden of these operations, with repeated incursions
accompanied by temporary checkpoints, home raids, arrests, and direct damage to
agricultural land and civilian infrastructure.
The Syrian
government has repeatedly called for a full Israeli withdrawal from positions
occupied after al-Assad’s fall, describing it as a prerequisite for any
negotiations over a potential security arrangement. Israeli officials have
stated they intend to remain in those positions on national security grounds.
Read more: Syria’s shifting stance: Is normalization with Israel on the horizon?
