TNA Staff
The New Arab / March 25, 2025
Israel has shelled a town in the Daraa governorate of Syria, killing at least five people, with the death toll expected to rise.
At least five Syrians were killed on Tuesday after Israeli shelling targeted the town of Koya, west of Daraa in the south of the country.
Dozens of injuries have also been reported, with difficulties in rescuing the wounded due to indiscriminate shelling. The Daraa 24 news website also reported that hundreds of people had fled the area.
Provincial authorities, in a statement posted on Telegram, reported a provisional toll of “five people killed in the Israeli bombardment of the town of Koya… west of Daraa”, adding that residents had fled Israeli tank shelling.
Some reports put the casualty toll as high as seven, with the death toll expected to rise.
Israel’s military claimed it carried out the shelling on Tuesday in response to incoming fire from across the demarcation line. However, there was no confirmation.
The deadly shelling comes after Israel struck targets at two Syrian military bases, “Tadmur and T4” earlier on Tuesday morning, in the province of Homs, according to a statement by the Israeli military.
The Israeli attacks coincided with a nationwide internet shutdown in Syria, as reported by international internet monitoring service NetBlocks.
“Confirmed: Live network data show a nation-scale internet outage across #Syria corroborating reports of a telecommunications disruption affecting multiple cities,” the service said on X.
It is not known if the shutdown is connected to the escalation of violence.
Tel Aviv has stepped up air strikes in Syria in recent months, targeting military sites it claims are linked to Iranian forces and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
However, Israel has so far produced no evidence that the bases in question were in use by Hezbollah or any pro-Iranian elements.
Iranian forces and Hezbollah, both of whom are allies of fallen dictator Bashar al-Assad have a hostile relationship to the current interim Syrian government and have lost the influence they once had in the country.
Israel has routinely carried out strikes against Syria throughout the conflict which began in 2011, but these intensified after a rebel coalition led by the Islamist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group ousted Assad on 8 December.
Israel has exploited the upheaval in Syria, using Assad’s overthrow to territorially expand its illegal occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, moving troops and building bases in the buffer zone, which is supposed to be demilitarised and under UN control.
Israel has essentially carried out an illegal land grab in southern Syria, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that the presence of Israeli forces in the area would be “indefinite”. It has also routinely carried out military incursions into areas such as Daraa and Quneitra, leading to the displacement of civilians.
Moreover, the Israeli government has attempted to exploit sectarian and ethnic tensions in the country, with it looking to isolate the Druze minority in the south from the central government in Damascus, which it labels as “jihadist”.
It has used Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s former role as leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham to portray the new Syrian government as extremist.
It has also openly touted the idea of splitting the country along ethnic and religious lines, in what is considered a direct effort by the Syrian government to unite and stabilise the country.
Israel has repeatedly said it will not tolerate the presence of the Syrian army in southern Syria, and has called for the area to be demilitarised, despite the presence of its own forces and its continued attacks on the area.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned on Monday during a visit to Jerusalem that Israeli strikes on Syria and Lebanon threatened to worsen regional tensions.
“Military actions must be proportionate, and Israeli strikes into Syria and Lebanon risk further escalation,” Kallas said at a joint news conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.
Agencies contributed to this report
