Egypt Daily News – Israeli forces have continued their movements in southern Syria, advancing once again overnight from Friday to Saturday into the Yarmouk Basin area in western Daraa countryside.
According to the Daraa 24 news network on Saturday, an Israeli military force, consisting of vehicles and armored units, advanced into the northern outskirts of the village of Ma’ariyah in the Yarmouk Basin area. The network reported that Israeli forces stationed at the Al-Jazeera military post on the village’s outskirts fired illuminating flares into the sky.
This incursion coincided with the presence of reconnaissance aircraft flying over the Yarmouk Basin and several other towns in Daraa and Quneitra provinces, with aerial surveillance lasting for more than an hour.
Israeli Strikes on Military Bases in Central Syria
On Friday, the army announced that it had struck two military bases in central Syria. According to an army statement, Israeli forces targeted remaining strategic military assets at the Tadmur and Tiyas airbases, the latter being located about 50 kilometers west of Palmyra.
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad on December 8, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes against military sites of the former Syrian regime. Israel claims these attacks are aimed at preventing the previous army’s weapon stockpiles from falling into the hands of the new authorities.
Israeli forces have also expanded their presence in the demilitarized zone between Israeli and Syrian troops in the occupied Golan Heights, a region Israel seized in 1967 and annexed in 1981. On February 23, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for southern Syria to be declared a “demilitarized zone,” emphasizing that Israel would not tolerate the deployment of the new Syrian government’s forces south of Damascus.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned Israeli airstrikes on Daraa province last Monday, labeling them an “aggressive act” aimed at destabilizing Syria. The ministry accused Israel of conducting “deliberate attacks without any justification,” asserting that such actions demonstrate Israel’s complete disregard for international laws and norms under pretexts that “no longer hold any credibility.”
