Quneitra, Syria – Ibrahim al-Dakheel, 55, watched in despair as an Israeli bulldozer demolished his 40-year-old dwelling, claiming it was essential to safe borders.
“It was 6:30am once I heard the explosion,” he instructed 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 dwell in al-Rafid, a village within the Quneitra governorate.
Al-Dakheel used to sit down in his entrance yard, having fun with the luxurious inexperienced fields and a flowing spring close by. Nothing introduced him higher pleasure, he stated.
However now, he and his household are looking for refuge at his mother and father’ home within the village whereas he continues to look at Israeli forces advance.
“I noticed them transferring by the village – vehicles and tanks arrived on the city corridor together with bulldozers,” he stated.
On December 8, Israel launched a navy marketing campaign concentrating on websites throughout Syria and advancing into Quneitra underneath 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 couple of officers.
Israeli forces have additionally fired stun grenades, tear gasoline and dwell bullets at demonstrators sad at their encroachment into Syria.
The latest incident got here on Wednesday when Israeli forces fired on a protest towards their destruction of a number of constructions 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 can be “short-term”, 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 dwelling when Israeli forces superior into her village.
Throughout Syria’s 13-year-civil warfare, 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 are actually stationed only a kilometre (0.6 miles) away.
Al-Faouri isn’t fully trusting of Israel’s claims that their presence is short-term and is anxious that Israeli troopers could possibly be in her dwelling in seconds.
“I instructed 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 the whole lot,’” al-Faouri, a nurse, instructed Al Jazeera.
“Even the troopers don’t understand how lengthy they’ll keep right here,” she added.
Some folks, al-Faouri stated, could desire 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 warfare.
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 underneath UN supervision, the world remained largely uncared for.
At this time, many inhabitants proceed to face uncertainty regardless of expressing hope that the nation will get better 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 line with 28-year-old lawyer Mohammad al-Fayyad.
“There’s worry, and an absence 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 identify 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 to have fun like the remainder of the nation.”
