According to local Syrian sources, an Israeli force accompanied by Hummer vehicles advanced into the town of Beit Jinn, located roughly 10 kilometres from the border with the occupied Golan Heights, on Wednesday (Nov. 26). After arresting three individuals, some residents of the town surrounded one of the vehicles and clashed with the soldiers, which resulted in several Israeli casualties. The occupation admitted that six of its soldiers were wounded, while Israeli news sites reported that 13 soldiers were injured, including two officers, with one soldier in critical condition.
In response, Israeli forces launched air and artillery strikes on residential homes, leading to the killing of 13 civilians, among them women and children, and injuring more than 25 others. The bombardment also triggered a large wave of displacement from the area. Videos circulated on social media showing the funerals of the victims amid overwhelming anger and grief, along with footage of the burning Israeli vehicle.
The Israeli massacre coincided with public celebrations in Syrian cities marking the first anniversary of the “Deterrence of Aggression” operation, which fell the day before the incident, and with military manoeuvres carried out over the past three days by Israel’s 210th Division toward Syrian territory, alongside the 91st Division responsible for the Lebanese border.
Israel presented its version of the raid by claiming that its forces crossed the Syrian border to arrest “wanted members of the Islamic Group,” a Lebanese organisation that former U.S. President Donald Trump had instructed his State and Treasury Departments to consider for designation as a “Foreign Terrorist Organisation.” This was a flimsy, manufactured security pretext. Meanwhile, the spokesman of the Israeli army released what he called “footage of the airstrikes launched by the Air Force in the area of the village of Beit Jinn in southern Syria after the clash with the terrorist elements, which resulted in the elimination of the terrorists from point-blank range.” The claim, however, is contradicted by the very nature of the supposed airstrikes, which cannot logically be described as killing people “from zero distance.”
The latest brutal assault appears to be a continuation of the manoeuvres led by Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, which effectively paved the way for what transpired. It also aligns with the recent incursion into Syria conducted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by senior military, security, and political leaders, during which he issued threats against Syrian President Ahmad al-Shar’a.
The Israeli patrol encountered resistance it did not anticipate from the townspeople, indicating, first, that the occupation army has come to regard such daily incursions as a routine security-military activity, and second, that it severely miscalculated the human factor, the simple truth that people cannot accept daily violations, nor can they “normalise” humiliation, the endangerment of their lives, or assaults on their dignity and livelihoods.
The recent Israeli massacre reveals, to begin with, a political context shaped by Israeli anger over the U.S.–Syrian rapprochement symbolised by President al-Shar’a’s visit to Washington and his meeting with President Donald Trump.
The Syrians’ resistance to the occupying force, which surprised Israel and exposed its insatiable arrogance for violence, also highlights a critical flaw in the notion of overwhelming power. At the same time, it signals among a broad segment of Syrians that the transition from “deterring aggression,” which contributed to the fall of a tyrannical regime once believed impossible to topple, to the tasks of “state-building” – development, justice, reconstruction, and risk-containment, including the persistent Israeli threat – does not contradict the kind of local, communal deterrence against Israeli aggression that occurred in Beit Jinn.
[Al-Quds Al-Arabi]
Compiled and translated by Faizul Haque