DAMASCUS (Dispatches) -- 
Israeli military forces have gone on a shooting spree in a village in Syria’s southern Dara’a province, forcing locals to leave their homes.
The television news channel Al-Ikhbariyah Syria reported that the occupation soldiers opened fire toward residential areas in different parts of the village of Ma’ariya.  
The incident comes amid continued Israeli military expansion into Syrian territory following the collapse of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government in December 2024. Since then, Israel has launched frequent aerial assaults across Syria and ground incursions in the southern part of the country.
Israel has also set up numerous checkpoints in Syria and abducted its citizens. The usurping entity has further expanded control over the occupied Golan Heights, taking over a demilitarized buffer zone in violation of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement.  
Despite promises by Syria’s ruling Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham regime to collaborate with Tel Aviv, Israel has consistently refused to end its illegal occupation of Syrian territory and repeated attacks.
In a separate incident, Israeli forces invaded an area in the suburbs of the city of Quneitra in southern Syria with tanks and military vehicles.
On Wednesday, Israeli minister of military affairs Israel Katz said that the regime’s army will not withdraw from what he called “security zones” in Syria, Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip. 
Speaking in a video statement delivered from an occupied region in southern Lebanon, Katz added that he had instructed the Israeli military to “take all the necessary steps to prepare for a long-term presence in the area.”
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already made it clear that the Zionist military will not withdraw from territories it occupied in southern Syria after the fall of Assad. 
“We want to preserve these assets,” he said in December 2025, referring to Jabal al-Sheikh and the buffer zone adjacent to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which Israel has held since 1967.
Israeli forces entered the buffer zone near the Golan Heights and pushed the occupation further, advancing to within 25 kilometers of Damascus.
Forays by Israeli settler groups into southern Syria have recently become a regular occurrence. Extremist groups, with members numbering in the dozens, have crossed to Syria every few days. 
Last month, an Israeli settler acknowledged that he and others were present in an area of southern Syria “day and night”, claiming it “belongs to the people of Israel according to the Holy Torah.”
The most prominent of the groups behind the incursions in Syria is known as “Pioneers of Bashan.” Formed early last year, the group consists of right-wing settlers aiming to establish Jewish settlements inside Syria. They have their sights set on an area of southwestern Syria that includes the provinces of Quneitra, Daraa and Sweida.