Israeli forces abduct Syrian man in Quneitra raid amid spike of cross-border incursions

Israeli forces abducted a Syrian man at dawn on Tuesday after another cross-border raid into Quneitra province, in what local sources described as part of a pattern of repeated incursions into Syria, causing terror and havoc in the region

An Israeli invasion force, made up of 10 armoured vehicles, sealed off the western neighbourhood of Saida al-Golan, in the southern countryside of Quneitra, before storming the home of Ahmad Ayed al-Issawi and abducting him, according to local media.

Israeli soldiers searched his home early Tuesday morning, causing significant damage, before withdrawing towards the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, the latest in a series of cross-border raids by Israeli forces in Quneitra and Daraa provinces over the past week.

Just a day earlier, Israeli forces entered a village in the southern Quneitra countryside and abducted two young men. On Sunday night, another young man was abducted from the northern Quneitra countryside, following the brief detention of three more men.

Lawyer Asim al-Zoubi, a member of the Free Horan Gathering, had previously said that some of the soldiers involved in the operations are Arab Druze conscripts serving in the Israeli army, although The New Arab cannot verify these claims.

Several of the young men who were released said they had been transferred to the notorious Ofer Prison, west of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, for interrogation, Zoubi said. One detainee has been held in Israeli detention since the night of the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

Since the collapse of the Assad regime, residents in southern Syria have reported near-daily Israeli incursions into parts of Quneitra and Daraa provinces, with abductions and temporary detentions of young men now a regular occurrence.

Local media outlets and rights groups say that while some of those abducted are released after questioning, others remain in custody for days or even weeks, with limited information provided to families about their whereabouts.

Israel has occupied the Syrian Golan since 1967, and since the fall of the Assad regime, has seized other strategically important areas of southern Syria, launching air strikes on government forces and institutions.