Witnesses accuse the Israeli army of arbitrary arrests in Syria

The place is Beit Jinn, in the countryside to the west of Damascus. It’s the night of November 28, 2025. Israeli soldiers launch a ground offensive. While bombs fall from the sky and artillery is fired at homes, clashes break out between Israeli soldiers and some villagers. A video posted online by the Israeli army shows soldiers arresting brothers Nidal Akasha Akasha and Muhammad Akasha Akasha in the fray. In a statement, the Israeli army claims that Nidal and Muhammad have ties to the Islamist group Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya.

The FRANCE 24 Observers team interviewed a number of Syrians who had been arrested and then detained in an Israeli prison for months before being released. We also spoke to the families of those still detained. We also analysed rare images posted online by the Israeli army, which claims that they have been arresting “suspicious persons” or those “linked to armed groups”. Through our research, we identified three different arrest operations carried out by the Israeli army in 2025. 

A total of 13 villagers died, and more than 25 were wounded in the attack on Beit Jinn, according to medical sources. For its part, the Israeli army claims to have "eliminated several terrorists". Six Israeli soldiers were wounded, three seriously. 

‘My father has no links to an armed group’

Alia (not her real name) is the daughter of one of the men arrested during the raid on November 28, 2025. She told us her version of events:

"That night, around 3:30am, we heard someone trying to force open the door. My father got closer to see what was happening, but the Israeli soldiers were already there. They immediately pinned him to the ground. Then, they went upstairs and arrested my uncle. They gathered all of us in the courtyard, including my mother and I, and they pointed their weapons at us. They forced us to our knees. 

My father is 52 years old, he’s a farmer. We lived in Lebanon for 12 years when we fled the war in Syria. We’ve only been back for a year. He has no links with any armed groups. That night, they searched everything, broke things, destroyed a door. 

Since then, we’ve had almost no information. After several months, an organisation told us that they were being held in Israel, one of them in the Sde Teiman prison, the other in Nafha prison. But other than that, we don’t have any information." 

It is not possible for our team to independently verify that the two men who were arrested don’t have any links to armed groups. According to the Israeli army, their brother was part of the group Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya. He was killed during a drone strike, likely carried out by Israel, on September 21, 2023, in Beit Jinn. Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya is a Sunni Islamist organisation with close links to the Muslim Brotherhood. The group, mainly based in Lebanon, blends political, religious and social activities, supports the Palestinian cause and has intermittent links with Hamas. Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, for its part, denies any link to the activities carried out in Beit Jinn. 

The Israeli army did not respond when we asked what charges the brothers were facing. They did not respond to our questions about the charges faced by any person mentioned in this article. 

Since the beginning of its operations in Syria in December 2024, Israel has maintained that it is arresting people with links to armed groups. 

When we spoke to other families across southern Syria, they described similar scenes to Beit Jinn: arrests carried out in the middle of the night, homes raided and family members threatened or immobilised. And, according to family members and other witnesses, the arrest of people who were not taking part in activities hostile to Israel. 

‘The dogs attacked me’

Israeli soldiers raided the home of a woman named Hiyam on February 16 in the village of Ghadir al-Bustan. Hiyam said she was attacked by the soldiers’ dogs and her two sons were arrested:

“It was February 16, 2026, in the village of Ghadir al-Bustan. It was 2:10 in the morning. We were sleeping when they burst into the home. The dogs immediately attacked me. They bit my face and hands. You can still see the marks now. 

They took my sons while I was injured. My oldest son, Hamza al-Aryan, is 19. They stripped him and threw him on the ground and a dog was on him. He was screaming for them to get the dog off him. My other son was tied up in another room.

They shut me and my 13-year-old daughter in a room and wouldn’t let us out. They didn’t even treat my wounds. They searched the whole home, broke down the doors, destroyed our belongings. There were perhaps around 50 soldiers and cars parked out in the street. People later told us that there were even drones flying overhead.  

I haven’t had any news of my sons since that day. It’s been more than a month. They are students, one of them was studying for his final high school exams. Their father died 10 years ago. They are all I have left. I don’t understand why they took them. 

All I want is for them to come back. Nothing else is important.”

Our team spoke to a spokesperson for the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (FNUOD), the force tasked with maintaining the ceasefire between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights buffer zone since 1973. She said that when she was alerted by locals, she went to the village "to meet the mukhtar (village leader) and the residents of the home [that had been raided]”. She added that they provided first aid to the residents of the home, who “had injuries on their arms and faces”.

The Israeli army has published photos and videos of police dogs accompanying soldiers during a number of raids carried out in Syria.

The Israeli army installs 10 bases

The Israeli army’s operations are taking place against a specific security backdrop. After the fall of longtime Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, Israel announced the collapse of the 1974 disengagement agreement, which established the buffer zone between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria. Since then, the Israeli army has deployed troops in the buffer zone and made an increasing number of incursions into Syrian territory, setting up at least 10 military bases – six in the buffer zone and four on Syrian soil.

We spoke to six men who were arrested and detained by the Israeli army. They said they were initially held in one of the new Israeli military bases built on Syrian soil in the villages of Jubata Al-Khashab, Tel Ahmar or Sirriyeh al-Jazira. Some were held for just a few hours before being released, while others were held for days. Some of them were transferred to Israeli prisons before being released.  

The prison central to many of the accounts

We also spoke to seven people who live in the region. One of them, who hails from Kodna, a village near Quneitra, said that he has been arrested three times by the Israeli army, most recently in late April 2026, when he was held for 24 hours. The six others all said that they were taken to Sde Teiman, a prison in the Negev desert in southern Israel, and held there for periods ranging from two to six months. In July 2024, footage circulated showing Palestinian prisoners being mistreated in Sde Teiman, which is located on an Israeli military base nearly 200 kilometres from the Syrian border. Based on our interviews, there are at least 35 Syrians currently being held in this centre. 

Abu Kinan al-Sayed, a former detainee, told us his story:

"I was arrested along with my son, my brother and my nephew at my farm in Jubata Al-Khashab, in the Quneitra region.

Right from the start, they take away your humanity. You no longer have a name, just a number. I was held in solitary confinement at Sde Teiman for around 55 days, while they were interrogating me.

They separate the Syrians and the Palestinians right from the start. After a week, they transferred us into group cells, each containing about 15 people. Everyone in my cell was Syrian, though we came from different regions: Ghouta, Beit Jinn, Quneitra and Deraa.

Life in detention was an endless stream of humiliation. They forced us to sleep on our stomachs on the concrete floor, sometimes for an hour at a time, in the middle of the night or during the day. They would enter at 3am or 8pm and set off stun grenades. They would force us to remain on our knees, our heads on the ground, immobile, while they were aiming guns with lasers at us.

I was finally released on January 19, 2026, after 65 days. But I left behind people who had been held there for more than a year. These were civilians, people with families. 

During one of the interrogations in Sde Teman, I asked the interrogator why I was there, and they said that they had received information that I had links to Hezbollah and that I was running groups that threatened the security of Israel.”

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) told our team that "any harm to detainees, whether during their arrest or interrogation, constitutes a violation of the law and IDF regulations and is therefore strictly prohibited".

FNUOD reported that locals regularly contact them about these nighttime operations and arrests, though the UN has not directly observed one take place. 

Increasing numbers of arrests and accusations of torture 

Lawyer Ahmad al-Moussa, who is based in Germany and working on behalf of a number of these families, says that the number of Syrians detained in Israel has drastically increased since December 2024. 

"Before December 2024, there were just four Syrians detained in Israel. At the beginning of May 2026, there were 39, four of whom were minors when they were arrested. 

We have contacted a number of international bodies, including the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances, to denounce the arbitrary arrests, conditions in detention and the acts of torture that these detainees have endured. But we are still waiting for a response. 

The people we spoke to said that both physical torture and forced confessions were taking place. 

Some had already spent five or six years in prison and were only released when the Syrian regime fell. Then, less than a month later, they were arrested by Israel.”

According to the Sijil Centre, a group that works to document the Israeli army’s activities in Syria, at least 197 people have been arrested in less than a year and a half. While most were released after a few days, the centre reported that 43 people are still being held in Israeli prisons, most often in Ofer, Nafha or Sde Teiman.

When questioned by the FRANCE 24 Observers team, the Israeli army responded: “The Israel Defence Forces have apprehended individuals where there was reasonable suspicion of their involvement in terrorist activity against the State of Israel, including activity carried out by Iran and terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas operating in Syria. In appropriate cases, continued detention is carried out for preventive security purposes, in accordance with Israeli law and the applicable rules of international law."

Minors amongst the detained 

Saddam was arrested on April 25, 2024, when he was just 17 years old. Hassan Ahmad is his father: 

"My son was on our farm, like all the other days. But then, soldiers arrived and arrested him. I saw it happen: they blindfolded him and took him by force. 

They called me from his phone to ask me to turn myself in and, in exchange, he would be released. I refused because I was afraid. Since then, I’ve only had one visit from the International Committee of the Red Cross. It’s been nearly two years, and I still don’t know where he is or what state he is in. 

Saddam is innocent. He was 17 when he was arrested. What could a minor of that age do, other than study and play with his friends?"

Siraj, a group of Syrian investigative journalists, published an investigation in August 2025 that mentions Saddam’s arrest and identifies where the video was filmed. 

An ill man detained 

According to the Israeli army, forces from the "Alexandroni" brigade, led by the 210th division, carried out a night raid on June 12, 2025, to arrest members of Hamas who were active in the region of Beit Jinn in Syria. 

Mohammed Hamada was one of the people arrested during this operation. We contacted his wife, who said that her husband is a farmer who underwent back surgery on November 16, 2024, at the Damascus University Hospital. She showed us a medical report indicating that he was experiencing serious health problems and that the operation led to partial paralysis. She says that a humanitarian organisation in the West Bank informed her several days ago that her husband is being held in Nafha Prison in Jerusalem. She is worried that his health will deteriorate in detention. 

‘They want to make us leave, but it is our land’  

The arrests seem to fall into two main categories: either people are being arrested during violent raids on their homes, often at night, or farmers are being arrested when they are near the ceasefire line. In some cases, civilians were targeted by gunfire.

A resident of Quneitra, who has been arrested three times, told their story: 

“Each time, they’ve come at night. They surround the house, blindfold me and accuse me of filming their positions. The next day, they let me go. They want us to leave, but it is our land.”

This article has been translated from the original in French by Brenna Daldorph.