A barbed-wire fence separating Syrian territory and Israeli-occupied areas is pictured near the village of Jbata al-Khashab in Quneitra in southwestern Syria near the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on Oct. 7, 2026. (Credit: Louai Beshara/AFP)
From his field in southern Syria, Hassan Ahmad pointed at new Israeli fortification works as its military edged ever closer to his village, adjacent to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
"Look at this berm around 300 meters away, just after the trees," said Ahmad, 46, a farmer whose son and nephew were previously kidnapped by Israel during its repeated incursions.
"The Israelis recently restarted digging this line along the Golan Heights," said Ahmad, who keeps planting olive trees near the village of Jubbata al-Khashab even though accessing his fields has become increasingly dangerous.
Towering Israeli wind farms could be seen in the distance.
Israel occupied most of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war and later annexed the areas under its control, a move only recognized by the United States and Colombia.
Since the December 2024 ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria and sent troops into a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone that had separated Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan since 1974.
It has also carried out repeated incursions deeper into Syrian territory and has vowed to keep troops in a so-called "security zone" in southern Syria, where it seeks a broader demilitarized area.
Mohammad al-Saeed, an official in southern Syria's Quneitra province, said the Israeli army "recently intensified construction operations" in the buffer zone.
Israeli forces are using "bulldozers to dig trenches and berms and set up observation posts," he said.
'Terrible' situation
The new Israeli line is being built "between 200 meters and one kilometer" beyond the cease-fire line established by a 1974 disengagement agreement, Saeed added.
On Sunday, Syria condemned the works as a "flagrant breach" of the agreement, reached after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.
Israeli forces regularly carry out incursions into villages in the Quneitra area, around 40 kilometers south of Damascus.
Saeed said Israeli forces had seized 56 people in the area since Assad's toppling, while "41 of them are still detained."
On Wednesday, five vehicles and an Israeli army ambulance entered Jubbata al-Khashab, where Israeli forces shot a man after he tried to flee when he saw them, witnesses told AFP.
"They hit him in the leg and took him away," said Mohammad Samia, a 65-year-old farmer from the village, which features old stone houses built with black basalt.
The man was released a few hours later along with two others the Israeli army said it seized on Monday after they approached its troops.
"The situation is terrible here. Israeli forces come and go. We're afraid because they shoot blindly," said Samia, who, like other farmers, complained about often being unable to access his crops.
The Israeli army has installed a yellow barrier at the end of Jubbata al-Khashab.
'Suspect'
In nearby Khan Arnabeh, vehicles belonging to the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force traveled past children returning home from school.
Police directed traffic, while security forces were stationed at intersections, but no Syrian army presence was visible.
Syria's new leaders have condemned Israeli military action in the country's south but have refrained from responding with force.
Despite the tensions, Syria and Israel have held several rounds of direct talks as they edge towards a security agreement.
In Jaba, another village in the region, Khadija Shehadeh sobbed as she showed a photo of her son, Mohammad Dabbour, whom Israeli forces killed this week.
"He was 22. He was my only son and he supported us," said Shehadeh, surrounded by other women also wearing black.
"May God take revenge on them," she added, referring to the Israelis.
Israel's military said on Monday that its troops had killed "a suspect attempting to infiltrate" a military post in the "security zone."
The Red Cross later handed Dabbour's body over to his family.
He had been shot "in the chest, shoulder, leg, and foot," his uncle Mohammad Shehadeh said at his nephew's freshly dug grave.
The circumstances surrounding the death of Dabbour, whose mother is Syrian and father was Palestinian, are unclear.
His mother said he had no ties to any political group and that she was trying to find him a wife.
But she said that before he disappeared on Sunday, he had left her a message reading: "I'm sorry, mother. You won't see me anymore. Pray for me."
