DAMASCUS (Dispatches) -- Israeli forces renewed artillery strikes and ground incursions across southern Syria on Saturday, while a prison riot and fire in the northern Kurdish-majority town of Kobani left at least seven inmates dead and dozens injured, according to Syrian media and a war monitor.
Israeli artillery targeted the Ain al-Sha’ra area near the town of Beit Jinn in the western Damascus countryside, with a shell landing in agricultural land and no injuries reported, according to SANA. 
The attack was accompanied by a ground incursion involving more than 10 military vehicles, two tanks, and a bulldozer that penetrated farmland belonging to the town. 
The shelling followed similar attacks on Friday that targeted the outskirts of Beit Jinn farm and the Bat al-Warda hill near the same town.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that an Israeli force of four military vehicles also entered the town of Al-Rafid in the southern Quneitra countryside on Saturday, searching several homes amid tension and anxiety among residents. 
The Observatory added that Israeli forces released two individuals — a father and his son — whom they had kidnapped during a night-time incursion into Al-Rafid on Thursday night, taken to the occupied Syrian Golan, and held before being freed.
The Observatory documented four Israeli artillery strikes over the past 24 hours and 10 ground targeting operations by Israeli forces in Syria during September, concentrated in Quneitra and the Damascus countryside. 
Since the beginning of 2026, the Observatory has recorded 72 instances of Israeli targeting of Syrian territory — comprising six aerial and 66 ground operations — resulting in five fatalities and damage to or destruction of approximately 13 targets.
In the northern town of Kobani (Ain al-Arab), a fire during a prison riot killed seven inmates and injured dozens more with burns and suffocation, Syrian state television reported. 
Inmates set fire to the prison during what authorities described as a “riot,” and the blaze spread to several dormitories. 
The prison remains under the management of its former Kurdish staff, as Syrian interior ministry forces have not yet taken it over following the dissolution of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in August.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the riots started over plans by authorities to transfer some inmates to a prison in the northern city of Aleppo. Rioters set fire to dormitories after hearing news of the planned transfers, according to media affiliated with the former SDF.
The unrest followed Friday protests over the killing of Sami Shekhmous Hiso, a former Kurdish fighter known as “Sipan,” whose body was found with gunshot wounds Thursday in Hasakeh province after reports of his abduction.