Israeli Raids and Detentions in Southern Syria Push Residents to Breaking Point

Qatana, Syria – In the living room of his home, Ahmed lowers his voice as he recounts being beaten and tortured in an Israeli prison after he was detained at a checkpoint Israeli forces had set up on a street in his village in Syria.

“They stopped me, asked my name, asked where I was from,” he said. “I gave my name and my village. They said: ‘You need to come with us for five minutes, then we’ll bring you back.’”

He says he was held in Israel for more than a year. For 90 days he was handcuffed, and he describes being thrown onto the cell floor and beaten with sticks while his hands were bound behind his back.

“They tightened the cuffs by stepping on them, until the cuffs cut into the flesh of my wrists and even my backside. Sometimes they left the cuffs that tight for a day or two until the hands swelled up. The hands turned blue and you lost all feeling.”

After his release this month, dozens of people gathered outside his home to congratulate him and to seek any information about relatives still missing. Al Jazeera has confirmed that at least 51 Syrians are still being held inside Israel. Many were previously held at the notorious Sde Teiman military prison but were later moved to facilities run by the Israel Prison Service. Al Jazeera confirmed that some of the Syrians were transferred to Ofer, al-Jalama (Kishon) and Megiddo. A small number have been released.

The impact lingers. Mahmoud – whose name has been changed – had been home for nine days when Al Jazeera interviewed him. “I still feel unstable; I’m not myself. Sometimes at night I feel like I’m going mad. I go and look at my children because I can’t believe I’m really home.”

Mahmoud pauses as his six-year-old son carries in a wobbling tray of tea and carefully sets it on the carpeted floor. The cups clink against each other, and the windows rattle. The children turn their heads toward the sound of shelling. Since the start of August, the Israeli military has fired artillery at the fields almost daily, preventing farmers and shepherds from working, occasionally killing livestock and constantly sowing fear among the population. In September, the Sijil Center, a Syrian organization that tracks Israeli activity, recorded 280 Israeli violations of the 1974 agreement between the two countries, including incursions, raids and detentions, as well as artillery and machine-gun fire.

United Nations forces have patrolled the demilitarized zone between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and the rest of Syria since the 1974 agreement, but Israel seized additional Syrian land immediately after Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell in December 2024. Peacekeepers remain present, but their ability to restrain Israeli military activity is limited, while that activity continues to escalate.

In one incident in late August, two Israeli tanks and five other armored vehicles moved down from a hilltop base and blocked the only road leading to UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) position 37, near the village of Jubata al-Khashab. A local council worker called the UN base – home to the headquarters of the peacekeeping mission established in 1974 to maintain the ceasefire between Israel and Syria – and asked whether they needed support.

“I think they felt insulted,” he said with a laugh. “And they told me: ‘No, just stay where you are; don’t you or anyone else come down here. We’ll call for support from another base if we need to.’”

UNDOF confirmed to Al Jazeera that the movement of mission personnel remains “restricted at times” by the Israeli military, and that Israeli barriers and checkpoints are “preventing UNDOF from carrying out planned patrols and mandated tasks”.

Residents sometimes seek help from peacekeepers when people are detained at checkpoints, but they can do little about midnight raids.

Mahmoud was detained at 3:30am when Israeli soldiers surrounded his home, called him by his full name and held up a photograph of him taken from social media. Nine days after his release, he squats, kneels and presses his forehead to the ground with his hands behind his head.

“They made us sit like this for hours,” he said, noting that he developed an infection in a knee wound from the cell floor. He has scars on his wrists and ankles from being bound.

“They cuff you so you can’t move and then they release the dogs,” he said. “The dogs are muzzled, but they charge at us, like a full-body blow.” He explained that the metal muzzles make the impact harder and draw blood.

“I want to tell you about the ‘disco room’,” he said. “It’s a room full of speakers; they put detainees inside, and the music is played very loud.” He said he saw Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners vomiting when they were brought out.

Mahmoud was never charged, and says he does not know why he was released. He said that throughout his detention he had no access to a lawyer. The International Committee of the Red Cross has been denied access to detainees in Israeli prisons since October 7, 2023, when the Hamas-led attack on Israel triggered the war in Gaza.

“They make sure you understand from the moment you walk in that you have been stripped of every right; they tell you so outright.”

Al Jazeera contacted the Israeli military for comment but had not received a response. Israel says its seizure of Syrian land and deeper incursions into Syria are necessary for security reasons and to protect Syria’s Druze community, which it says is threatened by the Syrian authorities – an accusation the Syrian government rejects.

Held without charge

Ahmed is baffled by his treatment. He told Al Jazeera that he was not even interrogated until nearly five months into his detention. He was asked whether he or anyone he knew was a member of Hezbollah, Hamas, ISIL (ISIS) or a list of other armed groups – groups that have little in common and have fought on opposing sides in Syria’s war.

Mohammed Seyyed was detained in 2025. Israeli forces had carried out a raid the day before, devastating his home and farm. He, his son, his brother and his nephew went to make repairs and were detained and taken into Israel. He was brought to an interrogation room bound and blindfolded. When an Israeli officer removed the blindfold, he showed him maps and photographs of his home and neighborhood.

“Even my barber, they knew his name and address,” he said. “They let me know they knew everything about me. That whatever question they could ask, they already knew the answer and would know if I lied.”

But when the questions came, they were vague. The Israeli officers seemed to know everything about him except what he was accused of. Mohammed told Al Jazeera that one of the officers admitted he had been detained on the basis of false information, which he attributes to informants within the community working for Israel.

A community under siege

The consequences of Israel’s military activity are wide-ranging. Checkpoints erected on the spot leave many residents afraid to leave their homes. Road closures have lasting effects after Israeli troops withdraw: students who need to travel to university consider moving to Damascus to ensure they can attend classes, and people with medical conditions worry about being blocked from reaching health services.

The Syrian government is in a difficult position; Israel has prevented Syrian forces from operating in the south, and Syria lacks the military strength to confront its neighbor even if the authorities wanted to. Instead, they have tried to negotiate a security agreement, but the talks have largely stalled since the war between the United States and Israel with Iran broke out.

People are losing patience and have begun to protest. In Qatana, local sheikhs gathered after Friday prayers.

“They have tested our patience in Daraa,” Sheikh Mamdouh Tahhan said, referring to an incident in Abidin where residents confronted Israeli forces. “As a state, we do not have the ability to enter into war with Israel, but as a people, we are ready.”

Families of some detainees feel abandoned by the government. They complain of a lack of legal and financial support, noting that when a breadwinner disappears, they fall hundreds of dollars into debt with local grocery stores.

Families have set up a WhatsApp group to share news and information, sometimes looking for signs in a sky full of low-flying Israeli warplanes and the persistent hum of surveillance drones. “Since morning I’ve been listening, and I can hear the drones,” one mother said. “I have a feeling that because the drones are flying, maybe someone will be released today.”

For weeks in a row, releases took place on Wednesdays. That day has become a painful wait. Hassan Ahmed’s son, then 16, was taken into Israel in April 2025. Israeli forces flattened his 400 olive trees shortly afterward. He became a key figure in organizing protests and seeking information with other parents – and in October, Israeli forces raided his farm again, destroying solar panels. Sitting on the balcony, late-afternoon sunlight filtering through walnut leaves, he plays voice messages from other parents arriving every minute.

“Since morning, any message that pops up on my phone, any new notification, I check it, hoping someone has been released,” another mother explained. “Our hearts are on fire. We are waiting.”

“I am full of grief,” Hassan said, putting down his phone. “I will never be able to describe this pain, it is so harsh. Even when I try to describe it, my heart tightens. I feel like my heart will stop beating. I feel like I will explode.”