An Israeli raid into southern Syria on Friday killed at least 13 people and left several Israeli soldiers wounded, according to Syrian health officials and the Israeli military, in what appeared to be one of the bloodiest cross-border incursions since the fall of the Assad regime last year.
Israeli ground forces carried out the overnight raid in Beit Jinn, a Syrian town near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the ground forces were moving in to detain suspected Islamist militants when they responded to fire from armed gunmen. The Israeli troops were assisted by air support, it added.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, citing the head of the health directorate in the Damascus countryside governorate, said that at least 13 residents were killed and at least two dozen were wounded in the Israeli attack. Two children were among the dead, SANA reported.
Several Israeli reservists were injured, three of them severely, the Israeli army said.
The Israeli raid was the latest in a series of steadily escalating cross-border incursions into southern Syria since Bashar al-Assad, the country’s longtime dictator, was overthrown by Islamist rebels last year.
Since the collapse of the Assad regime, the Israeli military has seized a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights and territory in southwestern Syria. The Israeli military has also launched hundreds of airstrikes on military targets across the country, including on the Syrian capital, Damascus.
In interviews, residents of Beit Jinn described scenes of carnage after they were awakened in the early hours of Friday morning by heavy gunfire and the roar of helicopters. Many were unable to flee amid Israeli bombardment, residents said.
Asala Daher, 36, said her husband was struck by shrapnel when he opened the door during the bombardment. “We were terrified,” she said as she stood beside him at a Damascus hospital on Friday.
The attack underscored how Syria’s new government, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, still faces significant security hurdles as it tries to rebuild a nation reeling from a bloody 13-year civil war and decades of authoritarian rule.
Israeli officials have defended the incursions and bombing campaign as an effort to ensure that hostile forces do not entrench themselves along the Israeli border. The Israeli military said the operation on Friday had successfully detained a number of militants belonging to Jamaa Islamiya, a Sunni Islamist political party and armed faction based in Lebanon that fought alongside Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group, during Israel’s war against the group last year.
Syrian officials reacted with outrage to the raid.
“What happened in Beit Jinn is a crime in every sense of the word and an assault on our people and safety,” Asaad al-Shaibani, Syria’s foreign minister, said in a statement.
“The persistence of such aggression threatens regional peace and security and demands a firm international response,” he said, adding that the attack had “deliberately targeted innocent civilians.”
Dayana Iwaza contributed reporting.
Euan Ward is a Times reporter covering Lebanon and Syria. He is based in Beirut.
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