Damascus: Syria said a man with a disability was killed on Thursday by Israeli fire during an incursion in the country’s south where Israel has stepped up operations.
The Israeli military has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria and conducted frequent incursions into its territory since Islamist authorities took power after toppling longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
“A civilian with a disability was killed Thursday by fire from the Israeli occupation forces during their incursion into the village of Jamla” in Daraa province, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
Israeli forces entered a neighbourhood and placed snipers on the rooftops after bombing the area late on Wednesday, the report said.
Syria condemned “in the strongest terms the Israeli occupation forces’ crime”, a foreign ministry statement said, adding that “targeting civilians is a grave violation” of international law.
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“Continued incursions and attacks on Syrian citizens are a violation of the sovereignty” of Syria and “a threat to the security and stability of the region”, the statement added, while urging the international community to compel Israel “to respect the rules of international law”.
UN deputy special envoy for Syria, Claudio Cordone, on X deplored “the killing of a young Syrian civilian with a disability by Israeli forces”, adding that “Israel must fully respect Syria’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and international law”.
After Assad’s ousting, Israel sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone that had separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the mainly Israeli-occupied Golan Heights since 1974.
It has also carried out repeated incursions deeper into Syrian territory, sometimes seizing residents, and has vowed to keep troops in a so-called “security zone” in southern Syria, where it wants to create a sweeping demilitarised area.
In recent days, Israeli forces have also uprooted olive groves in south Syria’s Quneitra province, SANA reported.
Trees were destroyed across an area of about 1.3 hectares by the village of Saida, SANA said.
The village faces the buffer zone where the Israeli army has been building fortifications.
“Tanks entered my land without any warning,” Mohammad Ali al-Shaghla, 58, the owner of the field, told AFP.
“They cut down and destroyed some 400 trees during their incursion.”
Syria last week condemned “the intensification of incursions by the Israeli occupation” in Quneitra and Daraa provinces.
Syria and Israel have held negotiations as they seek to reach a security agreement, but Israel remains distrustful of Syria’s Islamist authorities.