IDF Kills Militants in Daraa After Advancing Into Israel-Controlled Southern Syria Security Zone

The Israeli military announced that it killed armed militants on Saturday in an area under its control in southern Syria, according to Haaretz.

Haaretz reported the announcement was made in an IDF statement about operations in southern Syria, with the article dated June 28 2026 IDT.

Al-Jazeera Net

In parallel, Al-Jazeera Net said Israeli occupation army forces penetrated the Daraa countryside and announced they killed militants "in the security area in southern Syria," citing the army spokesman.

Al-Jazeera Net described the incursion as involving six vehicles moving toward Wadi al-Raqad, reaching the village of Jomla in the Yarmouk Basin area in western Daraa countryside, and it said the force departed from the gate of Tel Abu al-Ghithar and later stationed itself inside the Jama Battalion known as the Valley Battalion.

Le Matin d'Algérie reported that Syrian rebels seized on Saturday an important air base in the Daraa province in the south of the country, near Jordan, after two weeks of fighting against loyalist forces.

The outlet said opposition fighters belonging to (the jihadist group) al-Nusra Front, the Yarmouk Brigade (of the Free Syrian Army) and other groups seized Air Base 38 near the town of Saida on the road linking Damascus to Amman, with the Britain-based organization saying the rebels won it after 16 days of fighting.

Al-Jazeera Net

Le Matin d'Algérie added that at least seven insurgents were killed during the final assault, SOHR said, and it also noted at least eight deaths among the army.

The same report said SOHR reported at least 128 people died in Friday's violence across Syria, including 38 soldiers, 53 rebels and 37 civilians, and it described a funeral in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus for Sheikh Mohammad Said al-Bouti and his grandson, killed Thursday in a suicide attack that left about fifty victims.

France 24 reported that Hamza al-Khatib, a child beaten to death, became the emblem of the revolution after his lifeless body was returned to his parents on May 27.

The outlet said the 13-year-old boy was arrested in late April amid demonstrations in Deraa, and it reported that he was arrested on April 29 by Syrian authorities and returned dead nearly a month later after the family signed a written pledge to bury him immediately.

France 24 quoted the administrators of a Facebook page as writing, "There are several gunshot wounds on his body, used to torture him and not to kill him," and it also said the video posted on YouTube showed injuries including cigarette burns and bullet wounds.

The same France 24 article quoted Human Rights Watch's Nadim Houry saying, "It is the brutality of the security forces that is at the heart of it all," and it reported that Human Rights Watch called for an investigation into this murder.