Man with disability killed by Israeli fire in Syria

A man with a disability was killed yesterday by Israeli army fire during an incursion in southern Syria, where it has stepped up operations, Syria’s state news agency said.

Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 and an Islamist coalition’s rise to power, the Israeli army has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria and regular incursions into its territory.

“A civilian with a disability was killed Thursday by fire from the Israeli occupation forces during their incursion into the village of Jamla” in Deraa province, SANA news agency said.

Israeli forces deployed in one neighbourhood of the village and placed snipers on the rooftops after bombing the area late on Wednesday, the report said.

After Ahmed al-Sharaa came to power in Damascus in late 2024, Israel launched hundreds of strikes against Syria.

The IDF also carried out incursions into Syria’s south and deployed troops in the UN-monitored buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights.

In recent days, Israeli forces have also uprooted vast olive groves in Quneitra province, near Deraa, according to the agency.

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-Chaghla, 58, the owner of the field, told AFP. “They cut down and destroyed some 400 trees during their incursion.”

The Syrian Foreign Ministry on Sunday condemned “the intensification of incursions by the Israeli occupation” in Quneitra and Deraa.

Israeli officials have repeatedly stated their intention to maintain troops in the “security zone”, while Israeli leaders have said they want swathes of southern Syria to become a demilitarised zone.

The two countries have launched negotiations to reach a security agreement, so far without success.