Israeli forces fire on Syrians near Golan Heights, injuring five

Israeli forces fired on Syrian protesters in the villages of Suweisa and Diwaya Al-Kabira in Quneitra province near the occupied Golan Heights on Wednesday morning, injuring five people.

The Daraa 24 local news network said that Israeli forces stormed the village of Suweisa using tanks and two bulldozers, demolishing a number of deserted military barracks in the centre of the village and its outskirts, while also felling trees.

While the Israel troops did not demolish homes, residents gathered to protest against their destructive acts, raising Syrian independence flags.

Local sources told The New Arab’s sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that Israeli soldiers fired in the air and directly at the protesters, injuring three.

However, the protest continued, with people from neighbouring villages joining, until the Israeli forces left.

The village of Suwiesa lies to the west of the town of Jasem in Daraa province, and is only three kilometres from the UN-patrolled demilitarised buffer zone separating the Israeli occupied Golan Heights from the rest of Syria.

Israel invaded this buffer zone after the toppling of former President Bashar al-Assad’s regime on December 8.

Two more people were injured when Israeli forces fired on residents of the village of Diwaya Al-Kabira in Quneitra province.

Israeli forces had stormed a military base nearby, in order to continue demolition work there.

Israeli forces also detained a young man in his twenties, identified as Khalil Aref, after storming his home in the town of Abidin in the Yarmouk valley area in western Daraa province.

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 the 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 in the area 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.