'Living in terror' Syria's border towns kept in post-Assad limbo by Israeli occupation

On the day Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell, Abu Ibrahim and his family went to sleep wondering what sort of future awaited them.

- William Christou Nader Debo Quneitra

They woke the next morning to the sound of gunfire and tanks.

Those bullets announced the arrival of the Israeli military into the remote southern Syrian province of Quneitra on 9 December 2024. In the place of Assad’s militias who used to patrol the roads, bulky armoured personnel carriers filled with Israeli soldiers rumbled down the potholed streets, stopping to assure residents that they were there for their protection.

“When the Assad regime fell, we didn’t even get to celebrate - it fell over there while they entered from here,” said Ibrahim, 52, who works at a falafel shop in al-Qahtaniya, close to the Israeli border.

The hard-fought freedom gained in the rest of Syria after 14 years of war is nowhere to be found here. A year after Israeli forces entered southern Syria, crossing into a UN buffer zone and in some cases beyond, its armed occupation is still in place and the frequency of military raids on its towns is increasing. An Israeli incursion on the town of Beit Jinn at the end of November left at least 13 Syrians dead, including two children.

Residents say they have traded the tyranny of Assad for a military occupation. Checkpoints are now operated by Israelis, not Assad officers. Nighttime raids and phone searches continue.