On the frontlines of Israel's new war on Syria

Daraa, Syria - In southwest Syria, within the sights of Israeli artillery positioned on the hilltops of the occupied Golan Heights, there is evidence of a massacre. 

Shredded shoes once attached to living bodies lie among the mangled innards of rockets dispatched to support an Israeli invasion party under fire from locals.

Nine Syrians were killed in the clashes on this plateau deep inside Syrian territory, the latest in a series of Israeli incursions into southwest Daraa that killed over a dozen people, including six civilians, in the nearby town of Koayiah last month.

The official line of the Syrian government is that those killed on 3 April near the town of Nawa were civilians, but locals insist they sacrificed their lives to thwart an Israeli invasion.

At a watering hole around 7km from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a group of local men carrying rifles - a necessary security measure when venturing out of the town - were enjoying the solitude of the Syrian countryside when Israeli soldiers approached. 

After a fierce firefight, fezaa' - a public call for support - was announced in the area, with young men grabbing AK-47s stowed at home to support their besieged townsfolk. Moments later, an Israeli attack helicopter circled overhead and fired a couple of missiles at the group below, leaving dozens more injured.

The site is still strewn with chewed-up rucksacks and shrapnel, the eucalyptus trees cleared of body parts that clung to the branches after the massacre, but the puncture marks of bullets and shrapnel that sprayed the area remain.

“This is all that is left from the martyrs,” one soldier says, holding the shoe of one of the dead men. “They just came to help their family and friends and were only carrying light arms.”

Israel has used the tumult of the unexpected collapse of the Assad regime to expand its borders into the demilitarised zone in the Golan and now Daraa province; a series of provocations designed to challenge the new government in Damascus and draw southwest Syria into the region’s conflict zone.

In Nawa, there is anger about the killings but also pride, with locals saying how the town’s sons died resisting Israel. Many are now preparing for further attempts by Israeli forces to seize more Syrian land.

At a central security base, lines of plastic chairs bracket a parade ground that has been converted into a space of civic mourning for the days to come. 

Solemn men sip bitter black coffee as an officer with shoulder-length hair makes an eulogy to the nine young men, all from this town.

“In these blessed days, we hope the martyrs will be at the highest level in the afterlife,” the commander assures the mourners.

A local sheikh strikes a more bellicose tone, telling the people this tragic encounter with the Israeli soldiers was destiny and Nawa’s position close to the occupied Golan means that future clashes are inevitable and their advances must be resisted.

“You’re to the east of the river, they are to the west of it… this is our appointment [with God],” he tells the crowd.

Down the road, a crowd marches in time to a sombre chant, a hundred men funnelling through the arched entrance of the military base, past the portraits of the young men held aloft by a group of children, as soldiers stand guard at the head of the parade.

Atallah Hussain Al-Saker has lost four children in the 14 years of conflict that has engulfed Nawa - three fighting the Syrian regime and another son in battles with the Israeli forces - the bromide of 'Allah Yerhamo' words he experiences a hundred times every two or three years.

Despite his heartbreak, he says the sacrifices were necessary to fight injustice, whether Bashar Al-Assad’s or the Israelis’.

“We are defending our land and Israel will not take this town,” Al-Saker tells The New Arab. As he speaks, a passing teenager flicks aside his knee-length jacket to reveal a handgun and holster.

The belief among Nawa residents is that the town is trapped between the frontlines of an Israeli project to destabilise a free Syria and local banditry that is also plaguing the region.

So long as Israeli incursions continue, southern Daraa appears locked in a Sisyphean trajectory, with any attempt by the government to rebuild the battered province a futile endeavour.

Things were very different here in December with the flight of Bashar Al-Assad, when hope washed through this town and the regime pillar boxes that line the highway to Nawa every 500 metres or so were abandoned.

Locals exiled to Idlib following the regime seizure of Daraa in 2021 began returning to their homes riddled with gunfire or levelled in Russian bombing.

With agriculture and industry stifled by years of conflict, Nawa’s high street reflects the bleak economic outlook of Daraa, the road commandeered by hawkers selling blackened bananas and defrosted fish from the Falkland Islands - anything to earn a few liras. 

An Israeli foray came within 5km of Nawa’s centre a few days earlier, sparking panic and alarm across the town, reminiscent of the final apocalyptic Syrian regime offensive on Daraa.

A local man, his lower arm amputated, says that like him, most of his immediate family members have lost a limb in regime and Russian bombings.

“I feel so sad for my mother, her heart is overfilled with sadness,” he says.

Security remains a major issue, with a proliferation in weapons and a lack of work leading to a crime wave across Daraa province, with gangland-style clashes linked to the regime’s captagon trade once commonplace.

During the final days of Bashar Al-Assad’s rule, the town’s former Baath Party headquarters were gutted of its furniture by regime goons, the returning rebel fighters bringing their own tables and chairs to turn this vacant building into a somewhat functional security office. 

The half-abandoned fields to the south of the town have exchanged hands between a medley of armed actors repeatedly over the past 14 years, but signs of the Israeli presence can be seen throughout the countryside. 

At an abandoned building perched on a hillside, a two-metre tall emblem of the local Free Syrian Army brigade still proudly adorns its facade - the contentious wind turbines of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights just about visible in the distance.

Its grounds are littered with discarded Hebrew-language sweet packets and ketchup sachets left behind by Israeli soldiers who set up camp here briefly last winter, the walls of one deserted room bearing the scorch marks of fires kindled by these foreign buccaneers.

“The Israelis were eating and playing chess, it looks like they were having a good time here,” one soldier tells The New Arab. 

The Israeli troops eventually returned to their bases, a pile of trash left behind as a message that they were present at the site and will eventually return, yet the people of Daraa say they will continue to resist these advances.

“We will not let them take our land, we are not leaving,” one Daraa local told TNA.  “We’ve seen what’s going on in Gaza, and we saw what happened to Palestinians.”

Paul McLoughlin is the Head of News at The New Arab 

Follow him on Twitter: @PaullMcLoughlin