Syria Attacked by Israel: Israeli Attack on Beit Jinn Kills 13
SYRIA – Israeli forces carried out attacks on Syria early Friday Nov. 28, targeting the town of Beit Jinn in Damascus countryside, killing 13 people including 2 women and 2 children.
The state-run TV channel Alikhbaria reported that Israeli drones continued to fly over the area following the strikes, particularly along the road linking Beit Jinn and Mazraat Beit Jinn.
Many victims are still trapped under the rubble, it added, as the residents are still working to recover them.
Civil Defense teams and two ambulances from the Damascus countryside health directorate entered the area to transport the dead and treat the wounded following the Israeli attack, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.
The broadcaster said dozens of families fled Beit Jinn toward nearby safer areas after the attack.
Earlier, the channel reported that an Israeli patrol had entered the town and briefly clashed with local residents before withdrawing.
The Israeli army said in a statement that six Israeli soldiers were injured, including three in critical condition, during the operation.
It claimed that it detained members of “the Jaama Islamiya,” alleging that they “operated in the area of Beit Jinn in southern Syria and advanced attacks against Israeli civilians.”
Syria Condemns Israeli Raids
Syria condemned Friday’s Israeli army raid on the town of Beit Jinn in the Damascus countryside as a “criminal assault,” saying the incursion and subsequent airstrikes amounted to a war crime.
A Foreign Ministry statement said an Israeli military patrol crossed into Syrian territory in Beit Jinn, where it confronted local residents and “attacked civilians and their property,” triggering direct clashes that forced the patrol to withdraw.
Israeli forces then launched “deliberate and brutal” strikes on the town after the failed incursion, describing the attack as a “full-fledged war crime,” the statement added.
Syria said it holds Israel “fully responsible” for the raid and its consequences, including casualties and destruction, warning that continued “criminal aggression” threatens regional stability and reflects a systematic effort to destabilize the area and impose “an aggressive reality by force.”
The Israeli army has staged 47 raids in southern Syria in November.
Government data showed that the Israeli army has carried out over 1,000 airstrikes on Syria and more than 400 cross-border raids into the southern provinces since December 2024.
After the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in late 2024, Israel expanded its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights by seizing the demilitarized buffer zone, a move that violated the 1974 Disengagement Agreement with Syria.
Internal Rift in Israel
Senior Israeli military officers criticized the army on Friday after six troops were wounded and failed to recover their vehicle during a predawn raid in the village of Beit Jinn in Syria’s Damascus countryside, local media reported.
Israel’s public broadcaster KAN said the operation began around 3 am, when reservists from the 55th Brigade and the 210th Division moved into Beit Jinn, on the slopes of Mount Hermon, to arrest two brothers based on intelligence gathered in recent days, according to its account.
The brothers, the broadcaster said, were detained without resistance. It claimed the two were members of what it called the “Jamaa Islamiya” and were suspected of planting explosives targeting Israeli forces and firing a rocket toward Israeli troops.
As the soldiers left the house with the detainees, gunmen about 200 meters away opened fire on one of the military vehicles blocking the building’s entrance, wounding six soldiers inside, KAN added.
The broadcaster said the troops returned fire, killing several gunmen, while Israeli aircraft fired to isolate the area. The six wounded, including three officers and three reservists, were evacuated by helicopter for treatment.
After the vehicle was disabled by gunfire and could not be moved, the air force struck it.
Israel’s Walla news site reported sharp criticism within the army’s Northern Command over the incident, saying officers faulted the unit’s deployment and the fact that the force was surprised by the ambush.
The gunfire forced troops to leave behind a military Humvee in Syrian territory. The air force later located and struck the vehicle, the outlet reported.
It added that Israeli defense officials had not yet determined who opened fire but were not ruling out the possibility that Hamas or Islamic Jihad members were operating in the area, according to Israeli claims.
Israeli assessments also included the possibility that Hezbollah fighters carried out the attack in retaliation for the killing of the group’s chief of staff, Haitham al-Tabtabai, earlier in the week.
UN Deputy Special Envoy for Syria Condemns Israeli Incursions
The UN deputy special envoy for Syria on Friday condemned the deadly Israeli incursion into Syrian territory in the Damascus countryside.
“The raid and accompanying strikes have also triggered the displacement of families from the town of Beit Jinn, forcing them to flee to nearby areas in search of safety,” Najat Rochdi said in a statement.
Such actions constitute “a grave and unacceptable violation” of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, “further destabilizing an already fragile environment,” she said.
Rochdi reaffirmed the UN’s steadfast commitment to the sovereignty, unity, independence, and territorial integrity of Syria. She called for the immediate cessation of all such violations and urged full adherence to the 1974 Disengagement Agreement.
