In the village of Qatana, Ahmed, a Syrian man, described being arrested at an Israeli checkpoint and detained for over a year. He says he was kept in handcuffs for 90 days, beaten with sticks while restrained, and had his cuffs tightened by soldiers stamping on them until his hands turned green and swollen. After his release this month, dozens of villagers gathered to welcome him and to seek information about their own missing relatives.
Mahmoud, a pseudonym, had been home for nine days when interviewed. He said he felt unstable and unable to believe he was really home. As his six-year-old son brought tea, the family flinched at the sound of artillery.
Al Jazeera has established that at least 51 Syrians are still detained inside Israel. They have been moved from Sde Teiman to Ofer, al-Jalama (Kishon) and Megiddo prisons. A small number have been released.
Since early August, the Israeli military has shelled fields most days, preventing farmers and shepherds from working, occasionally killing livestock and regularly terrifying the population. In September, the Sijil Center, a Syrian monitoring organisation, documented 280 Israeli violations of the 1974 disengagement agreement, including incursions, raids, arrests, artillery and machine-gun fire.
UN peacekeepers have patrolled a demilitarised zone since 1974, but their capacity to restrain Israeli military activity is limited. Israel occupied additional Syrian land after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024.