Spurred by Trump, Israel’s Invasion of Syria Looms Permanent

As most of the country was celebrating the fall of the Assad regime, Israeli troops entered Syria for the first time in fifty years.

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As a mid-January morning unfolds in Madinat al-Salam, the provincial capital of the Quneitra Governorate in Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights region, the streets come alive. A group of men gather outside a shop, sipping sweet tea from plastic cups and chatting eagerly, while women weave through the bustling local market.

But there is also evidence here of the political upheaval that has swept Syria since its longtime authoritarian leader, Bashar al-Assad, was ousted from power in December. A green, white, and black flag with three red stars—the Independence Flag, a remnant of the former Syrian Republic that came to symbolize opposition to the Assad regime in the twenty-first century—flutters in the breeze, above Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) soldiers clad in camouflage and brandishing heavy guns. A long trail of uprooted trees and toppled lampposts leads to a large Israeli military tank that blocks the road that leads out of town. But this stark scene is not a relic from the country’s long civil war or the rebels’ recent victory—it is evidence of Israel’s invasion of Syria.

Israel has occupied much of the Golan Heights since 1967, when it took the land from Syria in the Six-Day War. Both countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1974, which established a demilitarized “buffer zone” on the Syrian side of the border, monitored by U.N. peacekeeping forces. Although clashes between the Assad regime’s forces and rebel troops had continually spilled into the buffer zone since 2012, after the start of the Syrian civil war, control of the two sides had remained unaltered.

That has now changed. Last December, as the Baathist regime lost control of Damascus and al-Assad fled from the rebel offensive, Israeli troops crossed the border, entering Syrian territory for the first time in half a century. In February, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed the incursion was prompted by security concerns over the power vacuum in Syria after the fall of the Assad regime, and stated that the Israeli military will remain in Syria indefinitely, demanding the “full demilitarization” of the country south of Damascus from “troops of the new Syrian regime.” “We will not tolerate any threat to the Druze community in southern Syria,” he said, justifying Israel’s incursion as a peacekeeping, self-defense mission.

While the United Nations and most countries in the region have condemned the move, the United States has all but provided its own stamp of approval of the Israeli incursion. The Biden Administration quickly justified Israel’s “temporary action” and Donald Trump’s return to the White House has done little to change this position. During Trump’s first term, the United States became the first, and only, country to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Now, The Jerusalem Post revealed that the Republican Party’s support for Israeli presence in Syria “remains undaunted,” with the Trump Administration and Republican lawmakers positioned to allow for it to continue for a “very extended period.”

For the residents of Madinat al-Salam, the looming presence of the newly established military checkpoint, which sits alongside the Israeli tank and is guarded by Israel Defense Forces, has turned life into a daily struggle for survival. “Anyone passing by risks getting shot,” says a young resident called Moutasem. Villagers hurry past the roadblock, barely daring to glance down the road. Children have turned the unexpected visit into a dangerous game, venturing some meters down the road before quickly retreating at the sound of gunfire.

While Madinat al-Salam has, so far, been spared casualties, the surrounding region has seen far more brutal violence. Six people were wounded in Dawaya on December 25, and another was injured in Maariyah five days earlier, when the Israeli military opened fire on demonstrations opposing the invasion. Israeli attacks have claimed the lives of at least one civilian north of Madinat Al-Salam, and residents in nearby villages have been unjustly arrested by the occupying forces.

Quneitra, a Syrian province located on the border of the buffer zone, is no stranger to violence. For years, it was a battleground between the Syrian army and opposition forces, changing hands frequently during the civil war. As much of the country celebrated the fall of the Assad regime in December and the prospect of peace, the region braced itself for a new wave of instability.

“The Zionist enemy entered under the pretext of confiscating weapons from the area, but it is lying,” says Abd al-Rahman, another young neighbour. Israel’s declared objective of demilitarizing the border region has come at the expense of local residents. The Israeli military has raided hundreds of homes, established checkpoints that restrict movement, and confiscated buildings and land. “We’ve also heard that they’re taking people’s belongings and keeping them for themselves,” al-Rahman adds.

Abd al-Rahman stands on the roof of his home, his gaze cast into the distance. Behind him, barely visible, the white silhouette of Mount Hermon rises above the morning haze. Straddling the border with Lebanon at over 2,800 meters, it was Syria’s highest peak until Israeli forces seized it in early December. But al-Rahman is facing away from the mountain, squinting against the bright sun. He shields his eyes with one hand, and with the other, gestures towards a distant body of water.

“My friends and I went there often. We’d go fishing, eat, and enjoy the beautiful scenery,” he recalls. The water lies within the demilitarized buffer zone, but the Israeli military has now encircled it. “We can’t go there anymore. The occupying army doesn’t let us,” he laments. As Israel extends its reach across the border, it has seized numerous vital water sources. One report estimates that Israel now controls up to 40 percent of Syria’s water supply.

Tarek, a man in his sixties who has spent his entire life in Quneitra, says Israeli forces have ravaged much of the region. “Just look at the damage. They’ve taken everything from us,” he says. Abd al-Rahman echoes this sentiment. “I’m upset. The enemy has destroyed our land,” he says. “This village used to be beautiful—the trees, the birds . . . . Now, it’s completely ruined.”

While the situation in Madinat al-Salam is dire, it is not as desperate as in al-Hamidiya, a mile down the blocked road. Al-Hamidiya sits next to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and is effectively cut off from the rest of the world by the Israeli military tank. An Israeli military checkpoint strictly controls movement in and out of the village for twenty-two hours a day. With the main road blocked, the few residents allowed to leave must navigate a maze of minor roads across the countryside, adding at least twenty minutes to any journey. 

“We are 430 people trapped in al-Hamidiya,” said one of a group of elders I spoke with in the village’s main square. Draped in red and white keffiyehs, they speak between drags of their cigarettes. Since the Israeli siege began in early December, residents say al-Hamidiya has gone weeks without food or water and has lost access to essential services like health care and education. “Our cows and sheep are dying because we have nothing to feed them. At night, if a child falls ill, we can’t take them to the hospital,” one elder says. “We’re starving and deprived of everything.”

Like many villages in Syria, al-Hamidiya bears the scars of war and economic woes that came to define the final years of the Baathist regime. Only a handful of shops are open, their shelves almost bare and shrouded in darkness due to a power outage. Buildings stand half-finished or in disrepair, their facades pierced with holes from past air strikes by the Syrian military. “After fourteen years of suffering under the criminal regime, after we drove Bashar al-Assad out, the Israeli occupation forces entered. We got rid of one occupation just to face another,” says one elder. Another adds, “All of Syria is celebrating, but we’re not.”

Al-Hamidiya was one of the first villages taken by the invading Israeli army. Soldiers raided every home, searching for weapons and compiling an extensive registry of its residents. Some houses were seized entirely. Along some streets, the scuffed tracks of an Israeli military tank are still visible. 

Villagers say they feel forgotten and abandoned. “Where is the government? Where is the world? Why doesn’t anyone help us?” one of them explains. “Is it our fault we stayed in our land? We are not leaving, even if we starve to death. We won’t repeat the mistake of 1967.”

But the people of Quneitra have not been entirely forgotten. Some forty miles away, in the heart of Damascus, a small but defiant protest took to the street on January 17 to denounce Israel’s invasion of Syria and ongoing occupation of Palestine. Under the gaze of both curious locals and the armed rebel forces now in control of the nation’s capital, the protesters waved Syrian and Palestinian flags. Their banners and chants called for Israel’s immediate withdrawal from Quneitra and Golan Heights. 

For the demonstrators, Israel’s justification for invading Syria is nothing more than a lie. “We know very well that Israel is a colonial expansionist entity that seizes every opportunity to expand its presence in the region, and we’ve always been worried about this,” says Zein Khuzam, a writer who joined the protest. 

Filmmaker Riham Ezzaldeen claims that Israel is never honest about its true intentions. “They have a map, a plan, a goal, and whenever they have a chance, they go for it,” she says. “And as the chosen people, that means the suffering of those who belong to this land.” 

Yet beneath their strong convictions, there is also uncertainty. Both activists fear that Syria’s new leadership is too fragile to push back against a nation that already carved away so much of their homeland. “Honestly, I’m not very optimistic. There is always a chance that this invasion will turn permanent,” Khuzam says. 

But Ezzaldeen is firm. “I refuse to even think about that possibility,” she argues. “It happened once with the Golan Heights. It won’t happen again.”