Laith Al-Junaidi and Ikram Kouachi
08 October 2026•Update: 08 October 2026
The Syrian Network for Human Rights documented at least 453 ground incursions by Israeli forces into Syria and the killing of at least 69 people between Dec. 8, 2024, and Oct. 6, 2026, according to the Syrian Al-Ekhbariya channel on Thursday.
The figures were included in a report by the group examining the practices and violations of Israeli forces on Syrian territory since the fall of the former regime.
The incursions were concentrated in the southern provinces of Quneitra and Daraa, and to a lesser extent in the Damascus countryside, according to the report.
The network recorded at least 162 cases of arbitrary Israeli detentions. Of those detained, 127 were released, while the fate of 35 others is unknown to the network and their families.
It also documented the demolition of at least 15 civilian homes by Israeli forces following the incursion into Hamidiya village in the Quneitra countryside.
The report documented extensive land-leveling operations in the Jabata al-Khashab Nature Reserve in the northern Quneitra countryside on Oct. 17 and 18, 2025.
In late January, the network recorded Israeli troops spraying grazing lands in Quneitra with a substance whose nature it was unable to determine.
It said Israeli forces resumed land-leveling operations Oct. 4 west of Al-Asha village and Al-Rafid town.
Regarding air attacks, the network documented hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on the provinces of Damascus, Damascus countryside, Hama, Latakia, Homs, Tartus, Sweida and Idlib, without providing an exact toll in the published data.
The figures come amid the continued Israeli military presence inside the buffer zone and at sites around it in southern Syria since December 2024.
On Dec. 13 of that year, the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) said Israeli forces had entered the buffer zone and remained at several positions inside, stressing that the movements constituted a “violation of the 1974 disengagement agreement.”
A UN report issued in September 2025 also documented the continued Israeli military presence in the buffer zone and neighboring positions, pointing to Israeli steps to consolidate its presence in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and territories it entered after December 2024.
The disengagement agreement signed between Syria and Israel in 1974 provides for the establishment of a separation zone monitored by the United Nations, while Damascus continues to demand the withdrawal of Israeli forces and respect for the agreement.
