Introduction :
This report follows three previous reports issued in January 2025, July 2025, and October 2025 by Al-Marsad – the Arab Human Rights Centre in the Golan, concerning violations committed by Israeli forces in areas they occupied in southern Syria following the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024 .
During the period covered by this report (October–December 2025), the Israeli occupation army committed multiple violations inside and outside the buffer zone. These violations affected civilians’ lives and property and caused significant damage to the environment and infrastructure.
Throughout this period, Syrians documented daily incursions into villages in Quneitra, Daraa, and rural Damascus governates, which included extrajudicial killings, establishment of temporary checkpoints, arrests (both short-term detention and imprisonment in Israeli facilities), repeated house searches, surveillance, photographing civilians, and collecting personal data. Civilians were also subjected to harassment and violations of their rights to life, property, and dignity, after Israeli forces also confiscated and destroyed agricultural equipment, killed or expelled livestock, burned and bulldozed agricultural lands owned by Syrian civilians.
This report is based on information collected from Syrian human rights organizations, including Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Syrian Network for Human Rights and “Sijil” Center. It also relies on Syrian media reports, Activists’ social media documentation, The interactive map of the INSS (Tel Aviv University), Local and international media coverage, Israeli reports citing statements from the Israeli army.
The information was verified by Al-Marsad through communication with journalists and activists living in the area, and establishing contact with victims and their families (for example, contact with detainees’ families and providing legal consulate). It is worth noting that Al-Marsad faced significant challenges in obtaining testimonies due to fear among residents of retaliation for cooperating with human rights organizations or the press.
Legal Analysis – Violations of International Humanitarian Law applied in international conflicts and cases of military occupation:
The Israeli army has occupied large areas of Quneitra Governorate, Daraa, and the Damascus countryside since the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024. This military control over the territory of another state, over the means of life in the area, and the establishment of military bases therein, constitutes, under international law, effective control amounting to an unlawful military occupation, pursuant to international law and the rules of the 1907 Hague Convention. As an occupying power, Israeli occupation forces are obligated to comply with the rules of international humanitarian law, particularly those that ensure the protection of civilians in occupied territories .
The acts carried out by the occupation forces—including extrajudicial killings, the arrest of civilians and denial of fair trial, the closure of roads and restriction of freedom of movement, the destruction of agricultural crops, the targeting of civilians, and the bulldozing of forests and environmental resources—constitute grave violations of international humanitarian law, in particular of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocol I of 1977, as well as the 1907 Hague Conventions.
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