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Israeli troops came under attack while operating in southern Syria early on November 28, with reports indicating that over a dozen people, including women and children, were killed in retaliatory strikes.
In a statement, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said that troops of the 55th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade set out in the early morning to detain members of the al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group), following intelligence information collected in recent weeks indicating that they were operating in the Syrian town of Beit Jinn and worked to advance attacks on Israel.
Beit Jinn is located in the countryside of the governorate of Rif Dimashq, right outside the Golan Heights’ buffer zone which was occupied by the IDF last year following the fall of the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad.
“During the operation, terrorists opened fire at IDF troops, who returned fire,” the military said, adding that the Israeli Air Force also struck the area to support the ground troops.
The IDF admitted two officers and a reservist were seriously hurt as a result of the fire. Another reservist was moderately injured, and two more reservists were lightly hurt, the military said.
The raid was, however, completed, with all of the wanted suspects detained and several gunmen killed, according to the IDF, which revealed in a separate statement released later that a total of three suspects were detained.
A destroyed Humvee armored vehicle of the IDF is seen in footage that emerged from Beit Jinn following the battle, which also shows damage to several houses.
Syria TV later reported that Israeli strikes on the town claimed the lives of 13 people and left more than 25 others wounded. Those killed include a family of five, with a mother and her children.
Even after the IDF said that the operation was over many civilians opted to leave Beit Jinn, amid complete silence from the country’s Islamist-led Interim Government.
This is not the first such round of clashes. In March, the IDF killed six people after facing resistance while conducting an operation in the town of Koayiah, which is located in the countryside of al-Qunitra. At the time, the Syrian government condemned the operation, but stopped short of reacting.
The latest deadly clashes came following Hebrew media reports suggesting that talks between Israel and Syria on a security agreement had reached a dead end, with the first refusing a strict demand by the latter to pull out from the buffer zone.
Just two days earlier, Defense Minister Israel Katz warned the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that an invasion from Syria was possible.
According to a report by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster, Katz said that Israel is “not on track” for a security deal or normalization with Syria , and is preparing for scenarios in which Syrian forces, or various militias within the country, attempt to attack Israeli communities or again threaten Syrian Druze communities.
Katz told the committee that Houthis are among the forces operating in Syria, with the Iran-backed Yemeni group weighing a ground invasion of the Golan Heights, the report added.
A separate report by Kan also claimed that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad has been working to expand its military presence in Syria with the knowledge of the government there.
Taking into account these accusations, the IDF’s deadly operation in Beit Jinn is not surprising. Israel is clearly preparing to start a new phase of escalation against Syria. The shape of this phase remains unclear. It could remain limited to incursions and raids in Rif Dimashq, al-Qunitra and the nearby governorate of Daraa, or wider in scale similar to the “war between the wars” covert campaign that saw strikes hitting military targets across Syria.
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i want the israelis to kill all the syrians so that this satanic wahhabi nation finally disappears from this planet.
what would excite me most of all would be if the israelis brought in nuclear bombs and used them to wipe out all of southern syria, because then this corrupt wahhabi nation would disappear and never exist again.
it’s a shame they didn’t kill somewhere between five and ten million of them and annex the territory to israel. this wahhabi nation must perish and disappear forever, so that not a single baby of them remains.
someone has to destroy this nation, and i don’t care if it’s israel. by the way, i would be happy with a aliens or big comet or the devil himself coming to earth and destroying them all.