Syria reports fresh Israeli incursion

Syrian state media said Israeli forces carried out an incursion into the country’s south yesterday, a day after the visiting UN chief urged an end to Israeli violations and respect for Syria’s sovereignty.

State news agency said that “Israeli occupation forces carried out an incursion early yesterday into the villages of Maariya and Al-Aarda in the Yarmuk basin in the west of Daraa province”.

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It said the soldiers, accompanied by three military vehicles and a bulldozer, set up a checkpoint in Al-Aarda, and that forces “dropped leaflets in towns in the Yarmuk basin warning residents against closing roads or obstructing the advance of the vehicles”.

After the December 2024 overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, Israel sent troops into the UN-patrolled buffer zone that had separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the Israeli-occupied Golan since 1974.

Israeli officials have said they intend to keep forces in a “security zone” in southern Syria. Also yesterday, SANA said Israeli defence forces (IDF) fired artillery shells at farmland near the Quneitra province village of Taranja.