The Israeli occupation army announces the arrest of settlers who crossed the Syrian border

On the evening of Friday, July 17, the Israeli occupation army announced  that it had arrested a number of settlers after they crossed the border into Syrian territory from the Majdal Shams area in the occupied Golan, before returning them to Israel and handing them over to the police, according to its claim.

The Israeli army confirmed that it detained the settlers and later returned them to Israel after they spent a whole day inside Syrian territory without being monitored by surveillance systems.

 According to the circulating data, the infiltration began on the evening of Thursday, July 16,  2026, when the settlers were able to cross the separation fence in the Majdal Shams area and enter Syrian territory.

Israeli reports  indicated that radars and fortifications did not spot them immediately, which allowed them to roam inside Syria for about 24 hours, explaining that as the circle of suspicion expanded, the army launched a wide combing operation that ended on Friday evening with them being found near the border, to be detained and transferred to the police to complete the investigations.

Mass infiltration attempts on the same day

  The army statement indicated that the incident was not isolated as the forces on the same day thwarted several separate attempts carried out by dozens of settlers who poured towards the southern Golan and Jabal al-Sheikh with the aim of crossing en masse into Syria, where the forces were able to prevent them and also refer them for investigation, amid fears that this phenomenon could turn into an escalating security challenge on the northern border.

Identity of the hackers

According to Israeli reports, the  infiltrators belong to the "Rowad al-Bashan" movement, an extreme right-wing settlement group that seeks, according to  Israeli sources, to establish outposts deep inside Syria, taking advantage of the security turmoil in Quneitra and Daraa with the support of some right-wing coalition lawmakers in the Knesset.

The  Israeli army leadership expressed extreme anger at the recurrence of these breaches, describing them as a "serious criminal violation" that constitutes a burden on the forces and distracts them from operational tasks on the flaming fronts, as well as endangering the lives of soldiers and civilians in a sensitive security area.

The army called on the police and the competent authorities to take deterrent measures against those involved in stopping this growing phenomenon.

The settlers infiltrated with the indirect support of the occupation army

This development comes at a time when the Israeli occupation army continues its violations of southern Syria , taking advantage of the security vacuum that followed the fall of the former Syrian regime to cross the 1974 ceasefire line , as it is establishing an integrated expansion project that includes bulldozing thousands of dunams, establishing crossing gates, and installing a permanent military infrastructure deep inside Syria.

The project includes the construction of gates and concrete barriers, most notably the Tal Abu al-Ghithar gate, which has become a daily starting point for military convoys and tanks infiltrating towards the villages of the southern countryside of Quneitra, such as Saida al-Hanut and Al-Ma'alqa.

These moves are part of the "Suva 53" project that Israel is working to expand inside Syrian territory, and the project includes the construction of a deep military road, the digging of trenches, the construction of earthen berms, and the installation of a new barbed wire east of the old line of contact, which effectively leads to the annexation of the shoveled lands and their transformation into closed military zones under Israeli control, under the pretext of preventing rocket attacks and combating infiltration.