United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk says Israel is holding 49 Syrian nationals in detention and carried out 280 armed incursions into several areas in southern Syria in September.
A statement from Turk’s office said released detainees recounted torture and ill-treatment, including beatings, prolonged forced standing and threats against their families.
He urged Israeli authorities to cease such actions.
The statement noted that September marked the highest monthly count of armed Israeli incursions since the beginning of the year, according to open-source monitoring data.
The incursions include “reported raids on homes, restrictions on movement, harassment and intimidation of civilians, arbitrary detention and destruction of livelihoods,” the statement said.
It called on Israeli officials to “cease actions that harass or intimidate civilians in Syrian villages, including raids, restrictions on freedom of movement, detention and destruction of crops.”
Areas near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights have experienced an increasing number of Israeli incursions this year.
Israeli troops crossed into southern Syria and areas west of the capital Damascus, and occupied parts of those regions, soon after foreign-backed Takfiri militants, led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces, unseated the government of former President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
Ongoing Israeli military raids in southern Syria continue despite a senior-level diplomatic engagement in Jordan in August, which brought together Asaad al-Shaibani, the chief diplomatic representative of Syria’s ruling HTS regime, and Roman Gofman, director of the Israeli Mossad spy agency.
According to two informed sources who spoke to AFP, the discussions covered multiple subjects, notably establishing a United States-administered “special operations center” in Jordan to prevent potential military confrontations in Syria — particularly those that might involve Turkey.
On August 18, Israeli military aircraft conducted eight aerial bombardments targeting the runway of the Abu al-Duhur Military Airbase in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, causing substantial damage to the facility’s infrastructure while a Turkish military delegation was present at the site.
Since the collapse of Assad’s government, the Israeli military has been launching a series of airstrikes against military facilities, installations, and ammunition reserves that were previously under the control of the Syrian armed forces.
Israel has faced considerable criticism for terminating the 1974 ceasefire agreement with Syria and capitalizing on instability in the conflict-affected nation to expand its territorial ambitions.
Israeli military strikes have predominantly targeted the southern Syrian provinces of Quneitra, Dara’a, and Damascus, with these regions accounting for roughly 80 percent of all verified Israeli assaults.
This makes it easy to access the Press TV website