Israeli army chief visits troops in southern Syria amid continued violations

Israeli army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir visited troops operating in southern Syria on Wednesday, a day after Israel carried out strikes on Syria, including an attack on the Abu al-Duhur military airbase, Anadolu reports.

“Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir visited soldiers in southern Syria this morning,” Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

“Zamir was accompanied by senior officers, received a security briefing and met with reserve forces operating in the area,” it added.

Meanwhile, Syrian state news agency SANA reported that the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) conducted a field tour in the town of Al-Rafid in the southern countryside of Quneitra to assess conditions and follow up on the repercussions of repeated Israeli violations and incursions.

Members of the UNDOF delegation listened to a detailed account from local residents about living conditions and the situation on the ground resulting from Israeli incursions in the area, SANA reported.

Earlier Wednesday, Israeli forces raided a town in Syria’s Quneitra province with more than 100 personnel and 15 vehicles and abducted two people, according to Syrian state television.

In late 2024, Israel seized the Syrian buffer zone, effectively ending the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement.

Early Tuesday, Israeli warplanes carried out eight airstrikes targeting the runway of the abandoned Abu al-Duhur military airbase in Idlib, causing material damage to its infrastructure.

On Tuesday evening, Syria said in two letters addressed to the UN and the UN Security Council that continued Israeli attacks, including airstrikes, incursions and kidnappings, “undermine stabilization efforts and threaten the region with further tensions.”

Syria reaffirmed in the letters its “firm position calling for an immediate halt to Israeli attacks, obliging Israel to implement the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement, and fully withdraw from the territories it entered after Dec. 8, 2024, as well as from the occupied Syrian Golan.”

Before the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in late 2024, Israel frequently carried out strikes on positions in Syria that it claimed were linked to Iranian-backed forces.

Since Assad’s departure, Israel has significantly expanded its strikes to include weapons depots and strategic military positions across the country.