TEHRAN – Recent developments in southern Syria highlight a rapid escalation of military actions by the Israeli regime, with a systematic expansion of Israel’s illegal presence across Quneitra, Dara’a and adjacent highland regions.
According to local reports, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) marched with armored vehicles and tanks from western Tal Ahmar towards eastern Tal Ahmar in Quneitra, intensifying a pattern of deepening entrenchments across key strategic hills.
The reactivation of the Hod Hahanit Reserve Brigade under the regime’s 210th Division further emphasizes the operational shift from sporadic raids to permanent deployment, with IOF forces conducting extensive search operations and detentions in Quneitra, including the seizure of civilians in Khan al-Naba.
Since the collapse of the previous Syrian government at the end of 2024, Israel has stepped up its violations of Syria’s territorial sovereignty. Hundreds of incursions, mass arrests, the deployment of military roads and a new network of checkpoints have effectively repainted parts of southern Syria without legal orders.
The regime’s security minister, Israel Katz, has publicly declared that IOF forces will be stationed at Mount Hermon and within the “safe zone” indefinitely. Although this area is internationally recognized as Syrian territory, it is currently treated as a strategic buffer zone by the regime.
Against this backdrop, Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extensive tour of southern Syria, accompanied by senior military and intelligence officials, demonstrated confidence in the regime’s new footing.
The visit, presented domestically as a “security emergency,” came just hours after Netanyahu postponed a corruption trial hearing and days after diplomatic talks between Syrian President Ahmad al-Shalah and US President Donald Trump.
The timing shows that Netanyahu was seeking to assert de facto control over Syrian territory while projecting authority into a region undergoing political restructuring.
But beneath the “defense” rhetoric lies a deeper strategic driver. It’s “water”. Southern Syria contains some of the most important hydrological assets in the Levant.
The Quneitra-Dara’a corridor is home to Al-Mantara Dam, Quneitra’s largest, which supplies water to eight other reservoirs. The Rukkad tributary and the Yarmouk River basin form the backbone of agricultural and residential water access for hundreds of thousands of Syrians.
Reports indicate that it is becoming increasingly clear that the Israeli regime is asserting control over these waters, reducing Syria’s access and increasing its influence over both Syria and Jordan. Farmers in the Luccad Valley are now digging wells five times deeper than they were a decade ago, showing how water scarcity has worsened due to military occupation.
Control of Jabal al-Sheikh, the surrounding basin, and the Yarmouk water system gives the occupation regime unparalleled surveillance capabilities and the ability to shape the region’s water and energy future.
As the Zionist regime seeks alternatives to counter new pipeline corridors, securing southern Syria’s water resources and the strategic depth that surrounds them has become a central goal.
In essence, the Israeli regime’s expansion of its occupation in southern Syria is not just a violation of sovereignty. This is part of a broader campaign to seize the region’s most valuable natural resources.
By tightening its control over southern Syria’s water resources, the regime weakens the overall capacity of Arab states, turns water into an instrument of strategic pressure, and puts itself in a position to decide the hydrological future of the Levant.