Protest in Damascus against Israel's arrest of dozens of Syrians

On Tuesday, May 19, 2026, the families of Syrian detainees in Israeli prisons organized a protest in front of the United Nations building in Damascus, demanding the disclosure of the fate of their children and their immediate and unconditional release.

 The move comes as an extension of previous moves, which included a sit-in in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates building in late April.

Relatives of detainees and forcibly disappeared persons who said their documented number is 47 (and in other estimates 48), from the governorates of Quneitra, Daraa and the western countryside of Damascus, participated in the vigil.

The list includes civilians of various categories, including farmers, herders and schoolchildren, as well as minors abducted during Israeli incursions into southern Syria, according to a statement sent by the protesters to the United Nations.

Residents: Inclusion of the detainees' file as a key item in any talks with Israel

The statement described the detainees as a "full-fledged crime of enforced disappearance" that violates international laws and the Geneva Conventions on the Protection of Civilians, explaining that the files of all the disappeared persons are officially documented by the United Nations Panel on Enforced Disappearances.

The protesters called  on  the UN Secretary-General and the Working Group on Enforced Disappearances to take urgent action and pressure the occupation authorities to release the detainees unconditionally, reveal their places of detention and conditions of detention, provide them with medical care and ensure their physical safety.

In their statement, the families called on the  International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to immediately enter the places of detention to check on the detainees, especially those who suffered injuries during the arrests, stressing that they will continue their movements until all the abductees return to their families.

In their statement, the protesters called on the Syrian authorities to include the detainees' file "as an essential and non-negotiable item in any security or political talks held under international auspices."

This vigil comes in the context of a tense field witnessed in the border areas in southern Syria, where Israeli incursions and shelling are frequent, amid increasing human rights demands to open the file of detainees and missing persons at the international level.

670 Israeli incursions documented since the collapse of the disengagement agreement

Syrian human rights centers have documented more than 670 Israeli ground incursions into southern Syria since the collapse of the disengagement agreement in December 2024 until May 2026, in a continuous escalation on the ground witnessed in the governorates of Quneitra and Daraa, which includes repeated violations of Syrian sovereignty and the rights of civilians.

Human rights data indicate that more than 620 incursions were recorded until the end of last April, followed by a new wave of military movements during the month of May that included a number of border towns.

According to the human rights center "Sijil", the number of documented violations during the month of April alone reached 254, in one of the highest monthly tolls since the start of the escalation, and  the vast majority of these incursions are concentrated in Quneitra governorate by more than 90%, while other violations are recorded in the western countryside of Daraa and areas of the southwestern countryside of Damascus, such as Jabal al-Sheikh and Beit Jinn.