ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Israel has conducted 849 aerial and ground attacks in Syria in the past 18 months, a human rights monitor said on Saturday, highlighting the absence of “clear indicators” to cease or reduce the raids in the foreseeable future.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said in a report that the strikes and incursions have “resulted in the deaths of 79 people, alongside significant material damage to military and civilian sites and facilities in several Syrian governorates.”
SOHR noted that despite the “political changes” the country has undergone the past two years, the attacks have continued at an “escalating pace.”
Following the ouster of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Israel pivoted to destroying the conventional military capabilities of the country, including its air, naval, and infantry bases.
This represents a significant shift from Israel’s previous policy of dismantling Iranian supply networks to Hezbollah in Lebanon with precision-guided munitions during the Syrian Civil War (2011-2024).
According to the SOHR, more than 720 military targets were destroyed across Syria.
The Israeli army has also pushed beyond the 1974 UN-monitored disengagement line, establishing a nearly 450-kilometer-long security buffer zone in southern and western Syria beyond the Golan Heights - which Israel has controlled since the late 1960s, and it is recognized by the UN as occupied Syrian territory.
The governorates of Daraa and Quneitra in southern Syria have “witnessed continuous field escalation since the fall of the Assad regime, amid ongoing repeated violations of Syrian sovereignty and an increase in Israeli movements and incursions within the border strip,” the Syrian watchdog said.
“With regional tensions ongoing, Syria remains an open arena for escalation, given the absence of clear indicators of a decline in the frequency of strikes or the containment of their repercussions in the coming period,” it added.
According to documentation from conflict monitors Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) and Amnesty International, the Israeli forces have established at least seven heavily fortified bases in Daraa and Quneitra, surrounded by massive earth berms and advanced sensor arrays.
It has also established an asphalt route in the Quneitra countryside to facilitate military mobilization and logistical support.
To secure the corridor, the Israeli military has demolished dozens of civilian structures, flattened agricultural farms, and utilized targeted herbicide spraying to create a barren perimeter with zero visual blind spots, based on a report published by ACLED on Thursday.
Israeli officials have stated that they seek to stay in these buffer sectors indefinitely to ensure the total demilitarization of the southern frontier and to mitigate any creeping security threats, asserting the country's right to act "independently" to block hostile regional actors, including the remnants of the former Syrian regime, Iranian proxy networks, and Sunni extremist groups.
Since the ouster of Assad, Israel’s security concerns have also largely been shaped by the Hamas-led attack in October 2023 - which killed more than 2,000 Israelis and culminated in the massacre of more than 70,000 people in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Syrian authorities have condemned the attacks and incursions as a violation of the country’s sovereignty and demanded Israel’s commitment to the 1974 disengagement agreement, saying that the Israeli actions impede Syria’s efforts toward stability.
