Israeli raid in southern Syria kills at least 13, Syrian officials say

DAMASCUS, Syria — An Israeli raid into southern Syria on Friday killed at least 13 people and left several Israeli soldiers wounded, according to Syrian health officials and the Israeli military, in one of the bloodiest cross-border incursions since the fall of the Assad regime last year.

Israeli ground forces carried out the overnight raid in Beit Jin, a Syrian town near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Israeli military said in a statement that troops had moved in to detain suspected Islamic militants in the town and that they had returned fire after coming under attack from armed gunmen. Syria’s state news agency, SANA, said that Israeli forces had shelled Beit Jin before entering the town, where they were confronted by local residents.

SANA said that at least 13 residents had been killed and at least two dozen others wounded in the Israeli attack. Two children were among the dead, SANA reported.

Several Israeli reservists were also injured, three of them severely, the Israeli military said.

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The Israeli raid was the latest in a series of steadily escalating cross-border incursions into southern Syria since Bashar Assad, the country’s longtime dictator, was overthrown by Islamist rebels last year.

Since the collapse of the Assad regime, the Israeli military has seized a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights and territory in southwestern Syria. The Israeli military has also launched hundreds of airstrikes across the country, including on the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Israeli officials have defended the military campaign as an effort to ensure that hostile forces do not entrench themselves along the Israeli border.

The Israeli military said the operation Friday had successfully detained several militants belonging to Jemaah Islamiyah, a Sunni Islamist political party based in Lebanon that fought alongside Lebanese militant group Hezbollah during its recent war with Israel.

The attack also underscored how Syria’s new government, led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa, still faces significant security hurdles as it tries to rebuild a nation reeling from a bloody 13-year civil war and decades of authoritarian rule. The country remains gripped by repeated bouts of sectarian unrest, and the central government in Damascus does not have full control over all of Syria’s territory.