Syrians perform funeral prayers for several victims killed in the Israeli strike on the town of Beit Jinn, Syria, Friday. The Damascus Countryside Health Directorate reported that 13 people were killed in the attack. These developments come amid escalating tensions near the Syrian Golan. Photo by Mohammed Al Rifai/EPA
Nov. 28 (UPI) — The Israeli Defense Forces launched an attack on Beit Jinn in southern Syria, which killed 13 residents, including two children, and seriously wounded some Israeli soldiers.
The Israeli military described the event as an “exchange of fire” in Beit Jinn, where three of its soldiers were seriously injured. It also said it arrested three people associated with Jamaa Islamiya, a Lebanon-based militant group.
The Washington Post reported that, according to their families, there were two girls, ages 4 and 17, and a 10-year-old boy killed.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry called it a “criminal attack carried out by an Israeli occupation army patrol in Beit Jinn. The occupation forces’ targeting of the town of Beit Jinn with brutal and deliberate shelling, following their failed incursion, constitutes a full-fledged war crime,” Al Jazeera reported.
Syrian civil defense said they weren’t able to enter the city to rescue the wounded because the IDF continues to target any movement.
Since the civil war in Syria overturned the Bashar al-Assad regime, the Israeli military seized a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights and in Syria. It has also launched hundreds of air strikes across Syria, including in Damascus. Human Rights Watch has declared some operations war crimes.
Earlier this month, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa met with President Donald Trump in the White House, and Trump paused all sanctions against the country for six months. But so far, Al-Sharaa has refused to normalize relations with Israel.