Thirteen killed in deadliest Israeli raid for months in southern Syria

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: BBC

At least 13 people have been killed in an Israeli raid on a village in southern Syria overnight, state media reported, in one of the deadliest incidents of its kind for months. It said children were among the dead.

Sana news agency said residents of Beit Jinn "confronted" Israeli troops, leading to a firefight. Air strikes were also carried out. Syria's foreign ministry condemned what it called a "war crime" by Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said troops went into the village, on the edge of the occupied Golan Heights, to detain militants who it said "advanced terror attacks against Israeli civilians".
...
Sana said the village was also shelled. Footage released by the IDF shows two air strikes - one apparently on a group of people, and the other on a building. In bodycam footage also released by the IDF, soldiers can be seen firing on a street in the dark with the sound of automatic gunfire in the distance.

Read more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp89k31krz4o

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If anyone can find any reports of the "terrorist attacks" that were supposedly launched from a Syrian village against Israeli civilians, that would be helpful. I'm coming up blank.

Israel says it will not allow the Syrian army to operate in certain areas of southern Syria. That is, in effect, a military occupation.

[lapucelle]

1. This story?

Syrians say 13 killed by Israel after clash with IDF left six soldiers wounded

Israel said six IDF reservists were wounded in clashes with local armed groups in the southern Syrian village of Beit Jinn on Friday, as Syrian authorities reported at least 13 people killed in Israeli attacks. The incident left three soldiers seriously wounded, the army said, including two officers.

snip====================

According to the IDF, a force from the 55th Paratroopers Brigade arrested two wanted individuals, who are also brothers, affiliated with the Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya group. The group is allied with the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

snip==========================

As the IDF was withdrawing from Beit Jinn, an exchange of fire broke out, prompting the dispatch of Israel Air Force fighter jets and drones, which struck several locations where the gunmen were believed to be entrenched. The statement added that the gunmen attacked an IDF Humvee, which was later struck by the military.

snip=========================

According to the reports, several shooting incidents involving gunmen from local militias were documented. The army said that in recent weeks, dozens of wanted individuals have been arrested in the area.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-11-28/ty-article/idf-six-soldiers-wounded-in-southern-syria-including-three-in-a-serious-condition/0000019a-c92f-d824-ad9e-eb7fabeb0000

[Igel]

2. That would be the one.

Same @ https://www.timesofisrael.com/six-soldiers-hurt-in-gun-battle-as-idf-detains-terror-suspects-in-southern-syria/ .

The military said that the pair had previously launched rockets at Israel.

[moniss]

3. The problem with all of this kind of reporting is that

it is all "the IDF says" and there is no really independent reporting going on in southern Syria. The occupation of southern Syria is another failure by the UN and the international community, mainly the US, to reign in the activities of the IDF/rabid right wing government in Israel. Independent journalists have been historically heavily restricted, harassed, targeted and killed by the IDF. That didn't come without orders despite any denials from the government.

It is particularly galling since if Israeli journalists reporting from conflict areas in Africa, Myanmar etc. were treated similarly the howling, retaliation and demands coming from Jerusalem would be off the charts. It is this kind of duplicity that other nations and people around the world find so obviously self-serving, hypocritical and deserving of condemnation.

[lapucelle]

4. The BBC story is nothing but "Syrian state media says..."

There is no independent reporting in the BBC "story". It's stenography that comes straight from SANO (Syrian Arab News Agency).

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/syrian-arab-news-agency-sana-bias-and-credibility/

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Well, no.

The parts of the BBC article that don't come from SANA or the Syrian government are:

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said troops went into the village, on the edge of the occupied Golan Heights, to detain militants who it said "advanced terror attacks against Israeli civilians".

Six Israeli soldiers were injured in the clashes, three seriously, it said.

The IDF said it targeted the Jamaa Islamiya militant group in Friday's operation. It said that when the raid began, "several armed terrorists opened fire" on its soldiers, who fired back.
...
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, said a building collapsed during the operation.

The IDF later said "all of the suspects were apprehended, and a number of terrorists were eliminated".
...
Israel regularly carries out incursions into Syrian villages, saying it acts to prevent the presence of armed groups.

Since the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad nearly a year ago, Israel has moved its forces across a buffer zone on the Golan Heights into southern Syria, where a number of anti-Israel groups and cells operate.

Israel says it will not allow the Syrian army, which it considers a threat, to deploy there.

The buffer zone - a demilitarised stretch of land - had been a no-go area designed to keep the peace after a ceasefire ended the 1973 war between Israel and Syria. The UN has said the IDF's deployment there was a "violation" of the agreement which it said both sides should uphold.

The US has for months been mediating talks between Israel and Syria for a security agreement in the area between the two sides, but without success.

So, from the Haaretz article, we see that the purpose of the IDF invading Syria was to arrest " two wanted individuals, who are also brothers, affiliated with the Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya group". We don't hear anything about a "terrorist attack".

The Times of Israel says the pair were " planning attacks on Israel", and "had previously launched rockets at Israel". But I can't find a report of this previous rocket attack which the IDF says was "against Israeli civilians". It does not seem to have been serious enough to report in English-language media.

According to Wikipedia, Israel claims that, since the fall of Assad, 3 non-combatant Israelis have been injured from attack from Syria, 9 soldiers, and 1 soldier killed. Meanwhile, the IDF has killed about 40 civilian Syrians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_invasion_of_Syria_%282024%E2%80%93present%29