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Israel escalates attacks on Syria amid HTS killing of minorities

Iran Press TV

Wednesday, 29 October 2025 9:20 AM

Israeli forces have ramped up their violations against Syrian soil by conducting four incursions across southwestern provinces of Quneitra and Dara'a over the past 24 hours.

Syria's news agency SANA, citing local sources, reported on Wednesday that the occupation forces sent tanks and military vehicles to various areas in Quneitra and Dara'a.

The tanks and military equipment were deployed on highways, main roads and entrances to villages and towns.

Documenting four Israeli incursions and ground movements within the two southwestern provinces over the past 24 hours, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said the violations coincided with the flight of Israeli drones and heightened security alert along the ceasefire line with the occupied Syrian Golan.

SOHR underlined that the repeated Israeli movements in recent hours bespoke the ongoing tension and instability in southern Syria, amid the absence of any response from the ruling Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) regime to such incursions.

"The increasing frequency of such operations reflects Israel's efforts to impose a new reality on the ground" along the border between Syria and the Israeli occupied Golan, "amid indications that military activities within the demilitarized zone may expand in the coming period," the monitor said.

The Israeli aggression came a few hours after unidentified gunmen killed at least two people in an attack on a coach along the road between Damascus and Druze-majority Suweida in southern Syria.

"A passenger coach... on the Damascus-Suweida road was fired upon by unidentified gunmen, killing two people and wounding others," SANA said.

Local outlet Suweida 24 identified the victims as a woman and a young man.

The outlet said that the coach was on its way back from Damascus "within the area where General Security checkpoints are deployed," referring to the checkpoints established and controlled by the HTS forces.

Three Druze civilians were also killed by gunmen last week in the northwestern province of Idlib, The New Arab, also known as Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, news outlet reported.

Suweida Province witnessed a week of bloody clashes on July 13 between Druze fighters and Bedouin tribes, which killed hundreds of people, amid reports of sectarian attacks and summary executions by the forces of the HTS regime led by Abu Mohammed al-Jolani — a former al-Qaeda commander. Estimates of the death toll range from 814 to 1,653.

Alawite teacher killed in Homs

Meanwhile, sectarian killings and abductions targeting Syria's Alawite religious minority continued this week, with unknown militants claiming the life of Raham Nizar Hamouda, a 32-year-old woman living in the al-Waleed neighborhood of Homs City, on the evening of October 24.

Hamouda, an Alawite teacher at the Sabea Rajoub School, was killed when the militants threw two grenades into her home.

Earlier this month, another female teacher in Homs was killed when militants shot and killed her in front of her school in the Zahra neighborhood.

Jolani, backed by foreign fighters and mercenaries, seized the helm in Damscus after removing former president Bashar al-Assad from power in a lightning offensive on December 8, 2024 amid 13-year-long foreign-sponsored militancy.

Since then, the Arab country has plunged into total chaos amid Jolani's crackdown on religious minorities and Israel's insatiable hunger for expanding occupation.