Israel is building outposts in Syria, raising local fears of occupation
JUBATA AL-KHASSAB, Syria — As the Israeli military swept into a string of Syrian villages in December, the soldiers assured locals that the presence would be temporary — the aim limited to seizing weapons and securing the area after the collapse of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
But the earthmoving vehicles that followed suggest a more permanent presence.
“They are building military bases. How is that temporary?” asked Mohammed Muraiwid, the mayor of Jubata al-Khassab, who has watched Israel troops construct a new military outpost on the edge of his village.
Satellite imagery examined by The Post shows more than half a dozen structures and vehicles in the walled Israeli base, with nearly identical construction five miles to the south. Both are linked by new dirt roads to territory in the Golan Heights that Israel captured in its 1967 war with its Arab neighbors. An area of cleared land, which experts say appears to be the beginnings of a third base, is visible another few miles south.
Hours after President Assad’s grip on his country crumbled in December, Israeli tanks and troops broke through the “Alpha line” that has marked the ceasefire boundary over the past half-century and moved into a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone inside Syrian territory, and in some cases beyond.
Israeli troops now come and go in the 90-square-mile buffer zone, which is supposed to be demilitarized according to the 1974 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Syria. Israel has said it considers that deal void following the Assad regime’s collapse. At its widest, the buffer zone is about six miles across, but at certain points Israeli troops have advanced several miles beyond it, local officials said.
The two new construction sites, located within what had until recently been Syrian-controlled territory, appear to be forward observation bases, similar in structure and style to those in the Israeli-held part of the Golan Heights, said William Goodhind, an imagery analyst at Contested Ground. The base in Jubata al-Khassab is more fully developed, while the one to the south appears to be under construction. The former would provide better visibility for troops, while the latter has better access to the area’s road network, as would a third base if built on the area of cleared land farther south, he said. The BBC originally reported construction at the site in Jubata al-Khassab.
Satellite imagery also shows a new road, located about 10 miles south of the city of Quneitra, stretching from the boundary line to the top of a hill near the village of Kodana, providing Israeli forces with a new surveillance point.
To build the outpost near Jubata al-Khassab, Muraiwid said Israeli bulldozers have ripped down village fruit trees and other trees in part of a protected nature reserve. “We told them we consider this an occupation,” said the mayor.
Since entering Syria, Israeli soldiers have also set up checkpoints, closed roads, raided houses, displaced residents and fired on protesters who have demonstrated against their presence, locals say. At night, patrols have been spotted on back roads with lights turned off, before returning to base.
“No one knows what they were doing. No one dares to ask,” said Budour Hassan, 55, as she picked leaves for tea a few dozen yards from an Israeli roadblock.
In response to questions about the nature and duration of its activities in Syria, the Israel Defense Forces said, “IDF forces are operating in southern Syria, within the buffer zone and at strategic points, to protect the residents of northern Israel.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously said that the troop presence is indefinite, citing security concerns.
Regarding reports that Israeli troops had fired on protesters, the IDF said it had operated “in accordance with standard operating procedures” after demonstrators had been asked to distance themselves from soldiers.
The push into territory previously controlled by Syria comes at a time when Israel is operating beyond its borders on multiple fronts to keep its enemies at a distance, following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel, which killed about 1,200 Israelis. In Gaza, Israeli forces have destroyed thousands of buildings within around half a mile of the border fence to establish a “special security zone.” During the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Israeli military has systematically leveled villages near the border between the two countries.
The Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham militants that now control the vast majority of Syria are noticeably absent from areas near the boundary. Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has said he’s committed to upholding the 1974 agreement that created the demilitarized buffer zone between the Israelis and Syrians.
“Maybe they have a deal with Israel we do not know,” said Hayel al-Abdulla, 77, the tribal leader in the tiny village of village of Samdaniya al-Gharbiya.
When Israeli troops blocked a road just south of Abdulla’s home with earth and rocks, he said he objected. “I told them this is not Gaza,” he said. “You can’t just block us in.”
Israel has said part of its mission is seizing weapons to prevent attacks on its communities. But Muraiwid said there are none left. When Israeli troops arrived in Muraiwid’s village they demanded that residents turn over weapons that had been abandoned by fleeing regime troops, he said. Locals agreed to collect the weapons and hand them over to avoid the kind of raids Israeli troops were conducting elsewhere.
They returned twice more. “The third time they came, I told them even if we had weapons, Syria has a new government, and we will give them to our new government,” said Muraiwid, sitting in a carpeted meeting room with expansive views of the surrounding countryside.
The Israeli military said Saturday that its troops in Syria had come under fire and “responded by firing shots.” A group calling itself the Islamic Resistance Front in Syria claimed responsibility. Local rebels played down the incident, saying it had occurred when a local criminal family thought Syrian forces were trying to detain its members.
Over international objections, Israel in 1981 annexed the areas of the Golan Heights it captured from Syria. Israel said the move was necessary to prevent Syrian shelling of farms in Israel’s Galilee region. But the plateau is also vital for Israel’s water supplies, feeding the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River.
The buffer zone includes a dam at a reservoir that supplies water to swaths of southern Syria. There are suspicions among local residents Israel is making a grab for water and other resources. Despite its operations in the area, the Israeli miliary says it does not control the dam.
For Syrian residents living near the ceasefire line, such as the tribal leader Abdulla, their presence on a geopolitical fault line has meant decades of tumult, caught between Israel and Assad’s regime. Some buildings here remain scarred by battles involving the government, Syrian rebel groups and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, with bullet marks and gaping holes from artillery fire still visible.
Israel has long been determined to curb the presence along the ceasefire line of Iranian-backed militant groups that supported the Assad regime.
In August, Israel forces began to carve a new 5.5 mile-long trench about 100 feet inside the Syrian side of the boundary fence, according to satellite imagery. The trench cuts through the land of Ahmed Bakr, 35, who lives in a roughly constructed two-bedroom home with his two wives and 10 children. Drones buzzing overhead observe his interactions with visitors.
He’s no stranger to interactions with Israelis. Bakr’s 9-year-old daughter was actually born in Israel, under an Israeli initiative to build support and influence on the Syrian side of the buffer zone. During the Syrian civil war, Israel also ferried wounded rebel fighters past the dividing fence to be treated in Israeli hospitals and, according to local officials, funded a local faction to fight the Assad government and its Hezbollah allies.
Now, the Israelis carry out foot patrols and raid houses, and a new Israeli base has cut villagers off from grazing lands, forcing the locals to buy more grain for their livestock, they say. “Everyone is worried, not only me,” Bakr said.
Among those concerns is the fear they may be displaced. The regional capital of Madinat al-Baath, a mile from the ceasefire line, was built in 1986 by the Syrian government for families from the Golan Heights during the 1973 war. Most of the 100,000 Syrians estimated to have lived on the territory captured by Israel were never allowed to return. Now, an Israeli tank sits outside the governorate building formerly occupied by Assad’s Baath party. Locals dart past a street that has been cut off by a makeshift Israeli roadblock of rubble and a downed streetlamp.
“We will not let the same thing happen again,” said Bilal Suleiman, head of the local municipality. “There is not a one-in-a-million possibility we will leave.”
Most of those ordered from their homes during the initial advance of Israeli troops across the line in December have been allowed to return. Some families said they have been blocked from doing so.
“Most people were allowed back, but they told me my house is a military zone,” said Jadallah Hamoud, 52, who stopped to eye the blocked road leading to his home as he returned from buying bread. He said he’s staying with friends in a nearby town with his wife and eight children and managed to get another farmer to take in his two cows and 15 sheep. But he had to turn his dogs and chickens loose, with no place to keep them.
The IDF denied families are still displaced.
In an effort to shed its associations with Assad’s Baath party, the town renamed itself Madinat al-Salaam, or City of Peace, in December. “Maybe they didn’t understand the message,” said Qasem al-Mohammad, 57, gesturing toward the tank.
Kelly reported from Washington.
correction
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated when the Israeli military swept into Syrian villages and when Madinat al-Baath renamed itself. Both events took place in December, not "last month." The article has been corrected.