The Israeli military said Friday that its forces shot a protester, wounding him in the leg, during a demonstration against military operations in a village in southern Syria.
Since Islamist-led rebels overthrew Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on December 8, Israel has carried out hundreds of military installations in Syria, saying it was to prevent military installations from falling into enemy hands. It has carried out airstrikes on military facilities in Syria several times.
In a move widely condemned internationally, Israel also sent troops into a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights and beyond, saying it was a defensive and temporary measure.
“During protests against IDF activities in the Mariya region of southern Syria, the IDF [the Israeli military] We called on demonstrators to distance themselves from the military,” the military told Agence France-Presse.
The village is just outside the southern edge of the UN monitoring zone.
“After identifying the threat, the military acted in accordance with standard operating procedures against the threat…The protester was shot in the leg,” the military said.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Israeli troops were stationed in barracks in the village.
“A young man was wounded by Israeli military gunfire in the village of Mariya in the Daraa region during a protest condemning the Israeli invasion,” the Observatory said.
Israeli forces at the Al-Jazeera barracks “fired directly at the demonstrators,” wounding a man in the leg, it said.
A villager in Mariya told AFP that Israeli soldiers had been infiltrating his village and other nearby villages in recent days.
“When the Israelis invaded… they instilled fear and fear among the people, children and women,” said Ali al-Kharaf, 52.
“So many people fled to other villages nearby. [Israeli troops] We entered the villages of Mariya, Abudin, and Jamra. ”
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security briefing atop a strategic mountain in Syria within the United Nations observation zone. During his visit, the Israeli prime minister reviewed military deployments in the region, the prime minister's office said.
Hours after Assad's overthrow, Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered Israeli forces to occupy the buffer zone.
Israel has insisted the move is temporary and defensive, with the prime minister saying it was a response to “the vacuum in Israel's borders and buffer zone.”
The military has acknowledged that Israeli forces are operating in areas beyond the buffer zone of Syrian-controlled territory.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country “has no interest in confronting Syria.” Israel's policy towards Syria will be determined by the evolving realities on the ground. ”
Syria's new leader, Ahmed al-Shara, accused Israel of “new unwarranted escalation in the region” by entering the buffer zone, but said that “the whole of Syria has been exhausted by years of war”. He said that it was an impediment to entering into new conflicts.
Israel conquered about two-thirds of the Golan Heights during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and later annexed it. The United States was the only country to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan during President Donald Trump's first term.
