Quneitra, Syria – Ibrahim al-Dakheel, 55, watched in despair as an Israeli bulldozer demolished his 40-year-old house, claiming it was essential to safe borders.
“It was 6:30am after I heard the explosion,” he informed Al Jazeera, pointing to the spot the place a Syrian navy submit as soon as stood close to his destroyed home.
He and his household reside in al-Rafid, a village within the Quneitra governorate.
Al-Dakheel used to take a seat in his entrance yard, having fun with the luxurious inexperienced fields and a flowing spring close by. Nothing introduced him better pleasure, he stated.
However now, he and his household are searching for refuge at his mother and father’ home within the village whereas he continues to look at Israeli forces advance.
“I noticed them transferring via the village – vehicles and tanks arrived on the city corridor together with bulldozers,” he stated.
On December 8, Israel launched a navy marketing campaign focusing on websites throughout Syria and advancing into Quneitra below the pretext of looking for weapons and collaborators with the Lebanese group Hezbollah and Iran.
Israeli forces arrange checkpoints, uprooted timber, and destroyed the village’s solely navy submit, which al-Dakheel stated was merely a small station housing a number of officers.
Israeli forces have additionally fired stun grenades, tear gasoline and reside bullets at demonstrators sad at their encroachment into Syria.
The newest incident got here on Wednesday when Israeli forces fired on a protest towards their destruction of a number of buildings in two Quneitra villages and injured three folks.
Israel’s incursion comes after Syria’s longtime autocratic president, Bashar al-Assad, was toppled by a lightning opposition offensive earlier in December.
Days later, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated Israel’s presence in Syria could be “non permanent”, but he later clarified that Israel would illegally stay on Syrian soil till a brand new safety association is reached with Syria’s new authority.
A brand new displacement
Maysoun al-Faouri, 47, was not anticipating to be uprooted from her house when Israeli forces superior into her village.
Throughout Syria’s 13-year-civil conflict, which started as a well-liked rebellion towards al-Assad that he brutally repressed, al-Faouri, her six kids and her husband – who handed away two months in the past from unknown causes – have been uprooted from the al-Hajar al-Aswad neighbourhood, a suburb of Damascus.
They moved to Madinat al-Baath, an space in Quneitra the place Israeli forces at the moment are stationed only a kilometre (0.6 miles) away.
Al-Faouri isn’t utterly trusting of Israel’s claims that their presence is non permanent and is anxious that Israeli troopers may very well be in her house in seconds.
“I informed my kids: ‘If you wish to escape, you may, however I don’t care if I die.’ I don’t even have the cash to go away. We’re all exhausted, poor and have misplaced every little thing,’” al-Faouri, a nurse, informed Al Jazeera.
“Even the troopers don’t understand how lengthy they’ll keep right here,” she added.
Some folks, al-Faouri stated, could want to remain in villages that Israel has invaded as a result of they don’t have the monetary means to go away.
A historical past of occupation and worry
Quneitra sits within the Golan Heights, a Syrian territory that Israel invaded and occupied in the course of the 1967 conflict.
After Israel’s withdrawal in 1974 from a lot of the territory it had occupied – whereas illegally retaining a number of the Golan Heights – and the declaration of a demilitarised zone below UN supervision, the realm remained largely uncared for.
As we speak, many inhabitants proceed to face uncertainty regardless of expressing hope that the nation will recuperate from the devastation of the battle.
However Israel’s increasing and seemingly indefinite occupation of Syrian territory is already crushing some folks’s optimism, in response to 28-year-old lawyer Mohammad al-Fayyad.
“There may be worry, and a scarcity of water, electrical energy, and meals [in Quneitra’s villages]. Faculties are closed, in contrast to in different provinces.
“Individuals who fled to Damascus after Israeli forces superior discovered no shelters and no assist,” al-Fayyad stated.
Those that have chosen to remain worry Israel’s aggression, particularly in the event that they protest its ongoing assault on the nation.
Many Syrians, like al-Fayyad, fear Israel will discover a new pretext to confiscate extra Syrian land within the title of “safety”.
“We have been celebrating victory and al-Assad’s fall, however then the occupation arrived, creating worry and spoiling the enjoyment,” al-Fayyad stated regretfully.
“We’re in a brand new stage … liberation. We must always be capable of rejoice like the remainder of the nation.”
