Israeli forces stormed the town of Jubata al-Khashab near the Golan Heights [Getty]
Israeli forces on Friday launched an incursion into two towns in Quneitra province in Syria, near the occupied Golan Heights, demolishing former military posts belonging to the Syrian army, as Syrians in western Deraa province demonstrated against the presence of Israeli forces in the area.
Israeli forces fired on the protesting Syrians, injuring one person.
Ayman Abu Mahmoud, a spokesman for the Free People of Houran media activist group, told The New Arab’s sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that dozens of people in the Yarmouk Valley area of southwestern Daraa province protested near the Al-Jazirah barracks, west of the town of Maariyah, which has recently been occupied by Israeli forces.
They demanded that Israel withdraw its forces from towns and villages in the area. Israeli forces fired on them, injuring one protester in his legs.
The protesters were calling for an end to Israeli incursions in Syrian territory and for the United Nations to exert pressure on Israel for this to happen.
On Friday Israeli forces stormed the town of Rafid in Quneitra province and searched houses there, while bulldozing Syrian army outposts there.
They also stormed the town of Jabata al-Khashab and took up positions at outposts which the Syrian army withdrew from following the Assad regime’s fall.
After Syrian rebels overthrew former President Bashar al-Assad’s regime on 8 December, Israel declared that a 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria was no longer operational.
It proceeded to occupy areas in and near a demilitarised buffer zone separating the Golan Heights – Syrian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 – from the rest of Syria, including the strategic Mount Hermon peak.
It has expelled Syrians from several towns and villages and launched massive airstrikes targeting military bases across the country, claiming to have destroyed most of the Syrian army’s strategic weapons as a result.