Eurasia Press & News
For Syrians on both sides of the divide, life has changed immeasurably since Israel began expanding its occupation of the Golan Heights
Majdal Shams/Beit Jinn – There are no Syrian flags anymore in the main square of Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, nor were there celebrations for the first anniversary of the fall of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime.
For the Druze who live there – one of four major communities in the Israeli-occupied territory – the only commemoration came through videos on their mobile phones, showing celebrations across the border for Syria’s new future.
Majdal Shams, with a population of around 11,000 Druze, is the closest village to the demarcation line of the demilitarised zone between Israel and Syria.
From the balcony of Druze analyst Dr Salman Fakhredin’s house, a new Israeli military outpost built inside the buffer zone since Assad’s fall is clearly visible.
Israel’s military moved into the UN buffer zone, which since 1974 had been demilitarised, immediately after Assad’s regime fell, launching multiple raids and incursions into villages in southern Syria.
Fakhredin’s family once lived in the villages on the other side of the demarcation line, now militarised with Israeli forces.
“When the Assad regime finally collapsed, people crossed the border for the first time in 57 years; we embraced friends and relatives,” he tells The New Arab.
However, that moment of reunification was tragically brief. In April 2025, clashes in the Druze-majority Jaramana and Sahnaya suburbs of Damascus left dozens dead.
Several months later, in July, a dispute between Bedouin tribes and Druze fighters in Suweida escalated into clashes that saw Syrian government forces intervene. As many as 2,000 people, largely Druze fighters and civilians, were killed.
In the days that followed, Israel sent humanitarian aid and threatened the government in Damascus, even carrying out a brazen airstrike on the Ministry of Defence.
“I firmly believe Israel engineered the clashes in Jaramana and Suweida to create a pretext for attacking Syria and expanding its regional influence,” Dr Fakhredin said, endorsing a theory that is widely shared in Majdal Shams.
The foundation for this complex situation was arguably set in March 2025, when Syrian Druze religious leaders visited Israel in the first meeting of its kind since 1948, a move that immediately raised suspicions among Druze Syrians in the occupied Golan Heights. They interpreted it as a blatant provocation directed at the central government in Damascus.
“Now the Druze are constructing new homes near the Israeli frontier. The IDF is preparing to seize the remaining parts of the Golan beyond the buffer zone, where they continue to occupy territory and develop infrastructure,” Fakhredin told TNA.
“Concurrently, we are seeing a rise in the number of local Druze opting for Israeli citizenship and military service.”
The gate between Majdal Shams and the Syrian buffer zone, once the site of family reunions a year prior, is now solely a passage for the Israeli military. Israel has decisively moved beyond the buffer zone, occupying Quneitra and other villages further afield.
This territorial push has recently culminated in reaching Rima, a Druze town within the Damascus governorate. Sources in the area told TNA that they frequently observe Israeli soldiers operating within the town, where they distribute money to children and facilitate the transfer of the sick to Israeli hospitals.
“I believe they are secretly taking them to Safed Hospital,” the analyst from Majdal Shams said.
Faris Ma’an, the Mayor of Rima, offered cryptic remarks when interviewed by The New Arab about these developments.
“It is not an advantage for us to accept these kinds of things, but if the money comes from an enemy to a friend, it is fine,” he said, referring to the fact that Israel is an enemy of the central government but that the community considers itself a friend of Damascus.
“Even during the civil war, Israel financially helped the families of the martyrs in Rima,” he added.
Israel is also reportedly funding the construction of a hospital in the town. When asked for his thoughts, the mayor listed private American donors who are directly funding the medical centre, but who, sources suggest, are linked to Israel.
Other reports indicate that Israel directly funds and trains internal militias in Suweida via the Israeli military, though this was not confirmed by TNA sources living in Suweida.
A highly controversial figure in this narrative is Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri in Suweida, the spiritual leader of the Druze in Syria, who has increasingly aligned himself with Israel and was present during the March visit. Many in Majdal Shams believe that he is taking money from Israel.
A fraught future
In early December, the Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli, said that war with Syria was “inevitable” in response to footage of Syrian troops chanting in support of Gaza.
Israel launched thousands of airstrikes on Syria after Assad’s regime collapsed, targeting former military sites, defence systems, and weapons depots, with aerial bombardments continuing ever since.
In Beit Jinn, a village in southern Syria near the UN ceasefire line, Israeli attacks in early November killed at least 14 people, with subsequent deadly Israeli drone attacks.
Among the victims was Ali Abd Al Karim Hamade’s daughter, killed by a drone on 29 November.
“All the people of Beit Jinn, from the fall of the regime until today, are living in a state of fear,” he told TNA from his hospital bed.
“Israel does not leave our area; it does not leave our homes. It intervenes continuously. We have asked UNIFIL, we have asked the Red Cross, but no one can do anything. They enter the villages and arrest our young people. They arrested seven people, and they have not returned.”
According to Dr Fakhredin, these Syrian prisoners are probably taken to Israeli Prison 1391, a secret jail reserved for “high-risk” detainees in northern Israel whose existence was only revealed in 2003. It is impossible to access or find out who is detained there.
While Israel exploits the fear of the Druze, buying their loyalty across the Syrian border and drawing them closer into its sphere of influence, it simultaneously kills, arrests, and deports their Syrian compatriots in Beit Jinn.
“Israel has consistently acted in its own self-interest,” observes Hassan Shams, a TV producer based in Majdal Shams, to TNA.
He reflects on the tragic irony of the situation. “Unfortunately, across the border, some now see Israel as their saviour, yet Israelis ultimately aim to assimilate us. This is our grim destiny: caught between the crocodiles and the lions.”
This fraught political landscape is intrinsically tied to the land itself, a territory that holds critical water resources. The rivers descending from Mount Hermon and feeding into Lake Tiberias represent a vital, fundamental resource for Israel.
“I believe the primary objective of the Israeli occupation here is the water. For that reason, I have lost all hope that the lands seized in 1967 – or those recently taken following the collapse of the Assad regime – will ever be ceded back to Syria,” Shams says.
