Israeli incursions and violations are making life increasingly untenable in southern Syrian border villages, as residents curtail their movements, suspend reconstruction and investment, and consider leaving if they have alternatives. The post ‘A repellent environment’: How Israel is reshaping life
Israeli incursions and violations are making life increasingly untenable in southern Syrian border villages, as residents curtail their movements, suspend reconstruction and investment, and consider leaving if they have alternatives.
22 June 2026
PARIS — From the rooftop of a friend’s house in the Quneitra village of Jubata al-Khashab, Abu Saddam watches his land from afar. For two years, he has not been able to approach the 10 dunums he planted with olives, cherries, peaches and grapes 24 years ago.
In May 2024, Israeli forces bulldozed Abu Saddam’s land, which now sits behind a trench dug along the border, part of Tel Aviv’s “Sufa 53” military road project. Soldiers detained his son—then 17 years old—the month before, and he is detained to this day.
With his land bulldozed and inaccessible, Abu Saddam tried to make up for his losses by renting around 40 dunums of land and planting it with a feed crop. Then Israeli aircraft blanketed much of the area with herbicides at the start of 2026. Abu Saddam could only harvest four dunums—the rest of his crop was ruined.
Abu Saddam’s troubles with Israel began several months before the Assad regime fell in December 2024, losing his land to Israeli forces working to reinforce the line between the occupied Golan Heights and Syria: building berms, fences and roads inside Syria, in a United Nations (UN)-patrolled buffer zone established under a 1974 disengagement agreement between the two countries.
But everything accelerated when Assad fell and Israel immediately moved to take control of the buffer zone inside Syria. Since then, villages in Quneitra and Daraa province along the “separation line” have become the sites of daily pressure, with incursions, raids, arrests and checkpoints. Israeli forces bulldoze land, prevent farmers and shepherds from reaching fields and pastures, and shell, shoot and spray herbicides.
Still, there has been no mass displacement, as residents try to hold on to their land however they can. Still, locals and journalists say Israel’s actions are creating a “repellent environment” that is pushing people to limit their movements, freeze reconstruction and investment and consider leaving if they have alternatives.
Abu Saddam’s story sums up the new scene along the border. According to the Sijil Center, an organization that documents Israeli violations in Syria, this past March saw the highest number of violations so far this year, with 321 recorded incidents, followed by 254 in April. The center has also noted a marked increase in ground incursions during these months, rising from 56 to 76 in Daraa, Quneitra and western Reef Dimashq.
The land that is a source of livelihood for many residents of Daraa and Quneitra countryside border villages has become a source of danger. Israeli patrols and checkpoints regularly stop shepherds and farmers, searching or temporarily detaining them, making the simple act of accessing fields or pastures a fraught and fearful decision.
Grazing, livestock raising and agriculture form the mainstay of Quneitra’s economy, but “these sectors have come under direct Israeli pressure,” said Malek Abu Obaida, a journalist from the western Daraa countryside who covers Israeli activity in southern Syria.
“When shepherds approach Israeli positions or border areas, they are temporarily detained, and livestock is sometimes confiscated or targeted,” Abu Obaida told Syria Direct. “Many pastoral areas are out of service because Israeli forces stop the owners from accessing them.”
In western Daraa’s Yarmouk Basin—also referred to as the Yarmouk Valley—where residents rely on early-season agriculture, a similar scene is unfolding. Farmers have been forced to abandon crops and beehives, after Israeli forces stopped them from reaching their land.
Restrictions imposed by the Israeli army in the Yarmouk Basin have expanded in recent weeks, with a notable escalation in violations, according to two local journalists Syria Direct spoke to for this report.
Farmers and herders are at the forefront, “the most targeted category, because their daily work puts them in direct contact with the land closest to the separation line,” a journalist who lives in the Yarmouk Basin area told Syria Direct, requesting anonymity for security reasons. “We cannot reach our land.”
As the harvest season and summer progresses, the risk of fires is added to the list of things residents worry about, given Israeli shelling and the use of flares in the area of agricultural fields and pastures, the journalist said.
The fire risk is compounded by the difficulty of civil defense teams reaching such sensitive areas, which would require coordination with the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) peacekeepers—who in turn would coordinate with Israel.
The Quneitra Farmers Union met with a UNDOF delegation at the start of June to coordinate farmers’ access to their land during the harvest period, submitting lists of names for the UN forces to provide to the Israeli side.
Israeli incursions have become a regular part of residents’ daily lives in border villages, as patrols deploy outside homes, block streets, search passersby and their mobile phones and conduct structured surveys about relatives, employment and opinions of Israel’s presence.
Multiple residents Syria Direct contacted declined to be interviewed, citing fears their phones could be searched by Israeli forces.
It is difficult to document all the Israeli violations that occur because “some take place at night,” a journalist living in the Quneitra countryside said, noting that a patrol passed his house shortly before our conversation. Residents are afraid to report or film incidents, “to the point that some are reluctant to talk about Israel or carry their phones with them,” he added.
Some “change their routes to avoid passing through Israeli checkpoints and patrols, because that means searches, long questions and the fear of kidnapping,” the same source said.
In Jubata al-Khashab, where farmer Abu Saddam lives, journalist Ahmad Abu Ali described the security situation as “very bad,” noting that the pace of Israeli violations increased in recent weeks, especially in the southern Quneitra countryside.
“Israeli intervention in the area makes daily movements, even going to school or work, difficult and linked to the possibility of arrest or questioning,” he added.
In western Daraa, Israeli checkpoints may only deploy for a few hours outside military installations, but that is enough to change residents’ behavior. “Just seeing a checkpoint or patrol can make people choose a longer route or delay going out,” the Yarmouk Basin journalist said. “What bothers people most is searching their personal phones, with details of their personal lives, photos and conversations.”
Despite increasing pressure, only a limited number of families have left villages along the 1974 disengagement line.
“The center has not documented any mass displacement” from Quneitra province, Alaa al-Haji, a journalist and researcher at the Sijal Center, noted. The exceptions were families “evicted from their homes by Israeli forces in the village of al-Hamidiya on December 9, 2024, before their houses—16 in all—were demolished in June 2025,” she added.
However, there are worrying indicators on the ground, including “some farmers and herders’ reluctance to access certain land, and a decline in agricultural activity,” al-Haji noted. The current rate of violations, if continued, “could drive residents to consider leaving the most vulnerable areas.”
Some frontline Quneitra villages, such as al-Qahtaniya, Bariqa and Bir Ajam, are “virtually empty,” the Quneitra countryside journalist said. Some residents have left and not returned due to the Israeli presence, staying in Damascus and the surrounding area or leaving the country entirely, he noted.
But most in the area “are still in their homes, despite the Israeli harassment, because they have no alternatives and rents in Damascus and Daraa are high,” Abu Obaida said. “People of the area depend mainly on what they grow, or their livestock products.”
“There is clear discontent and dissatisfaction with the incursions and harassment, they believe the future is worrying and dark, but they have no other choice,” he added.
Residents’ commitment to remaining in their homes is offset by the continued stabilization of Israel’s military presence in the region, however. After the former regime fell in 2024, Israel established nine military points inside Syrian territory, extending from Mount Hermon (known as Jabal al-Sheikh in Syria) in the north down to the Yarmouk Basin in the south. These positions are fortified by earthen berms, military equipment and heavy machinery, indicating that the nature of this presence may be more permanent than a temporary incursion.
On June 15, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz stated the country’s forces would “remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza, without any time limit” for the “protection of our citizens.”
“The Israeli bases seem permanent, especially after the construction of roads and installation of lampposts and helipads,” Abu Obaida said. “It is an attempt to impose a new fait accompli.”
These more permanent positions worry residents, as they redraw the shape of the region and its borders, and are increasingly used as starting points for incursions.
Gnawing away at Syrian territory in this manner is also an extension of a process that began in 2022, as part of Israel’s “Sufa 53” project. The military engineering project, which began in the Quneitra countryside in 2022, aims to construct an eight-meter-wide military road fortified with five-meter-high earthen berms and equipped with observation points and trenches along the edge of the buffer zone with Syria.
A connected concern is Israeli settlement. On May 17, the Israeli military announced it had returned 10 civilians who crossed the border into Syrian territory. Those involved belonged to a group known as the “Pioneers of Bashan.” Bashan is the biblical Hebrew term for the area of southern Syria extending from the occupied Golan Heights to Suwayda.
Would-be settlers previously attempted to cross the border in November 2025 at two points on Mount Hermon, as well as near Bir Ajam in the Quneitra countryside.
Israel’s presence and practices in southern Syria “create a repellent environment for the population, especially when combined with denying access to land and livelihoods,” al-Haji of Sijil said. “Farming and herding, a primary source of income, has declined.”
Still, many residents remain not only because they lack alternatives, but out of the fear that leaving could mean losing their land once and for all. “Some homeowners in villages near the Israeli positions resort to giving their empty houses to any family seeking housing—even without rent—so they do not remain vacant and vulnerable to seizure or demolition by Israeli forces,” the Yarmouk Basin journalist said. “Staying has become a form of property protection.”
Residents and journalists do not agree on a single explanation of Israel’s intentions from intensifying incursions and raids and installing military points in Quneitra and Daraa. While some view these activities as an attempt to gradually push people off their land, others consider them a form of pressuring the Syrian government in the context of negotiations and security arrangements in the south.
In Abu Obaida’s perspective, the uptick in violations is tied to “the return of talk about completing negotiations between Syria and Israel, and the latter’s attempts to pressure Damascus to offer greater concessions.” In this view, Israeli practices are a “part of the pressure tools on the ground—the more complicated the negotiation, the more elevated Israel’s demands, the more the pressure on border village residents increases,” he said.
In Jubata al-Khashab, Abu Saddam feels similarly. He does not believe Israel wants to clear the area of its residents, but rather to “push people to pressure their government, as a means of imposing an agreement or a particular security arrangement.”
“The nature of the questions and surveys Israel conducts in the area indicates it does not want to empty it, but wants the Syrian army and security forces to assume their role in controlling the border and area,” he said.
Journalist Abu Ali, however, sees “a colonial method and policy, aimed at making people uneasy so they abandon their land.” Yet as “residents have nowhere else to go, they have reached a state of forced coexistence with reality,” he added.
Abu Obaida, who holds a similar view, noted that Israel’s operation along the separation line has taken place in stages. Starting in December 2024, Israel destroyed the Syrian army’s heavy weaponry in the area along the border, installed outposts and began searching residents while pursuing those deemed a threat and confiscating personal weapons, culminating finally in an attempt to “normalize” the daily Israeli presence, he said.
This continued presence has disrupted reconstruction and investment in the border villages, “paralyz[ing] economic activity,” Abu Saddam explained. “Nobody buys land in an area whose fate is unknown, and nobody feels secure enough to renovate or build a home, or pour money into a business venture.”
For its part, the Syrian government’s response appears to be security-focused, in the form of checkpoints and screening those coming from Damascus to Quneitra, as well as hunting cells linked to Hezbollah and the former regime, Abu Ali said.
“The government has succeeded in controlling the security situation, relatively, but this security presence does not impact the people, who want social and economic support,” he added.
Abu Saddam criticized a “lack of support for the population’s steadfastness [in the form of] compensation for farmers and herders, assistance to detainees’ families, encouragement of reconstruction and provision of services.”
The Quneitra countryside journalist echoed this, saying the province is “not managed administratively so much as in terms of security.” He pointed out that the current governor, Ghassan Elias al-Sayyed Ahmad, appointed by President Ahmad al-Sharaa in May, works from Damascus after Israel twice targeted his predecessor with warning strikes while he was working in Quneitra.
Syria Direct reached out to the Quneitra Governorate for official comment on measures taken by Damascus to support residents of the border villages, compensate those impacted or ensure farmers and herders’ access to their lands, but received no response by the time of publication.
The response from Damascus to date stems from “the weak capabilities of government institutions after the fall of the [Assad] regime,” the Yarmouk Basin journalist said. However, he acknowledged the government has carried out limited service projects in some border areas, though Israeli forces have obstructed their ability to operate.
More than documentation of Israeli violations and statements of condemnation, what residents of the border villages need is a greater service presence, al-Haji of Sijil said. She called on Damascus to “support the farming and livestock sector and compensate those impacted by attacks and economic losses,” alongside “documentation mechanisms, legal follow-up and regular communication with local communities.”
So far, the danger in Quneitra and western Daraa does not appear to be in the form of mass displacement, but rather in the erosion of the very conditions that allow residents to remain. The land exists, but reaching it is no longer guaranteed, while work to rebuild and restore homes is postponed. Life hinges on the details of a security agreement that has yet to be born.
This report was originally published in Arabic and translated into English by Mateo Nelson.
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