DAMASCUS, Syria — Israeli forces raided a Syrian village and opened fire when they were confronted by residents Friday, killing at least 13 people, Syrian officials said, in the deadliest Israeli attack since troops seized a swath of southern Syria a year ago.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry called the attack a “horrific massacre” and said women and children were among those killed.
The Syrian state news agency SANA said Israeli forces entered the village of Beit Jin aiming to seize local men and opened heavy fire after being confronted by residents. Dozens of families fled the area.
Israel said Friday it conducted an operation to apprehend suspects from the Jamaa Islamiya militant group in Beit Jin who were planning improvised-bomb and rocket attacks into Israel. It said that other militants opened fire at the troops, injuring six, and that troops returned fire, including bringing in air support. It said the operation had concluded, all of the suspects were apprehended and a number of militants were killed.
An official in the village, Walid Okasha, told the Associated Press that those killed were civilians. Among the dead were a man, his wife, their two children and his brother as well as another man who had gotten married the day before.
Firas Daher, a Beit Jin resident, told the AP that troops moved in around 3 a.m. and were met by “slight resistance, with light weapons.” Troops responded with drones and helicopters and fire from heavy machine guns. “Whenever anyone would move inside the village or any car would move, it would get hit. When we tried to take injured people to the hospital, they would hit the car carrying them,” he said.
Since the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad in December 2024, Israeli forces have held a slice of southern Syria that was previously a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone under a 1974 disengagement agreement. Troops have regularly carried out operations in villages and towns inside and outside the zone, including raids snatching people it says are suspected militants. Israel has also launched hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian military sites and pushed for a demilitarized zone south of Damascus, the capital.
Israeli raids have several times been met by armed local residents. In April, troops raided the town of Nawa, and when confronted by residents, the military carried out airstrikes in the town, killing nine people. A month earlier, Israeli forces killed six people in the village of Koayiah in similar clashes during a raid.
In a previous raid on Beit Jin in June, Israeli forces seized several people who they said were Hamas members — a characterization disputed by residents — and killed a man whose family said he had a history of schizophrenia.
Israel says it seized the 155-square-mile demilitarized buffer zone in southern Syria in a preemptive move to prevent militants from moving into the area after Islamist insurgents toppled Assad. It says the move is temporary, but critics accuse Israel of taking advantage of Syria’s turmoil for a land grab. Israel still controls the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed — a move not recognized by most of the international community.
Syrian officials have condemned the Israeli incursions as a violation of Syria’s sovereignty. On Friday the government called for the international community to take “urgent action” to halt Israeli incursions.
Israel has viewed Syria’s new government, headed by former insurgent leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, with suspicion. The two countries, which do not have diplomatic relations, have been negotiating a potential security agreement to de-escalate.
The deaths in Syria followed a series of strikes by Israel’s air force in parts of southern Lebanon on Thursday. Israel says its ongoing strikes are aimed at preventing Hezbollah from rebuilding after a devastating war last year ended with a ceasefire.
The United Nations on Tuesday said Israel had killed at least 127 civilians, including children, in its strikes on Lebanon since the ceasefire a year ago. Things escalated this week with an Israeli strike in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, killing a senior Hezbollah official whom Israel described as the group’s chief of staff.
Shaheen writes for the Associated Press.
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