DAMASCUS — Israeli forces continued their incursions into southern Syria on Wednesday, while de facto president Abu Muhammad al-Jolani’s account of a joke he made to Donald Trump about the Golan Heights drew attention amid ongoing diplomatic tensions.
Jolani revealed at a Atlantic Council event in New York that during a White House meeting, Trump raised the issue of recognizing Israeli “sovereignty” over the Golan Heights. 
Jolani said he responded jokingly: “Why don’t you give New Jersey to the Israelis? You don’t own the Golan Heights to give it to them, but you own New Jersey.”
He added that New Jersey is “full of Democrats who won’t vote for Trump,” so “giving New Jersey to the Israelis would be a good idea.” 
The remark referenced Trump’s 2019 formal recognition of Israeli “sovereignty” over the Golan, which UN Security Council Resolution 497 declared “null and void and without international legal effect.”
On Wednesday, an Israeli military patrol of five vehicles penetrated Umm al-Azzam village in the central Quneitra countryside and established a temporary checkpoint to search passersby.
Earlier, Israeli forces released a shepherd they had abducted the previous evening during an incursion near Al-Rafid town in the southern Quneitra countryside.
These operations are part of a broader pattern. Jolani told the UN General Assembly that Israel has conducted nearly 500 air and artillery strikes and more than 1,200 ground incursions into Syrian territory, along with approximately 300 arrests of Syrians.
A former Al-Qaeda and Daesh deputy which has been embraced by the West since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, Jolani has refused to take any action against frequent Israeli invasion and occupation of Syrian territories, instead floating the idea of normalization with the Zionist regime. 
Separately, 14 Israeli settlers crossed into Syrian territory near Bir Ajam in the Quneitra countryside on Tuesday evening. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights identified them as belonging to the “Pioneers of Bashan” movement, which advocates for Israeli settlement inside Syria.
Five people were killed in armed clashes between two families in Deir Hafer, eastern Aleppo countryside, over a land dispute. Internal Security Forces intervened and brought the situation under control.
Three Syrian soldiers from the so-called Military Engineering Administration were injured Wednesday when a mine exploded while they were clearing unexploded ordnance in Al-Hurriya village in the Tal Abyad area of northern Raqqa province.
A powerful explosion at an ammunition depot in Al-Eis, south of Aleppo, on Monday injured four people and triggered secondary blasts. This was at least the fourth such explosion in September alone, following incidents in Binnish (September 1), Sarmada (September 9), and Dayr al-Zawr (September 18).