Israeli forces today, Saturday, September 21, penetrated into Syrian territories in Quneitra province, accompanied by tanks, bulldozers, and trench-digging equipment.

Enab Baladi’s correspondent in southern Syria stated that the Israeli army entered the border strip to a depth of up to 200 meters inside Syrian territory and began bulldozing agricultural land, digging trenches, and building earthen berms as part of the “Sufa 53” road project.

The correspondent added that Israel brought in bulldozers and heavy equipment escorted by a Merkava tank and several personnel for trench digging, indicating that the equipment enters repeatedly and works from morning until evening before returning to Israeli territory.

The correspondent noted that Israeli equipment is currently operating west of Jubata al-Khashab village and below one of the Israeli observation posts in the Shahar area, where four machines are working together to dig trenches.

At approximately every kilometer, the equipment crew establishes an observation point fortified with earthen berms about five meters high.

Israel does not officially comment on this type of movement in Syria, and Syrian official media does not announce the entry of Israeli units into its territory.

In 1974, under the supervision of the United Nations, the United States, and the Soviet Union, an agreement was reached between the Israeli and Syrian sides to draw a disengagement line between the two sides, known as “UNDOF,” around Jubata al-Khashab village in Quneitra in the occupied Golan. To the east lies Syrian territory, and to the west, Israel.

In mid-2022, Israel penetrated into Syrian territories eastward, surpassing the UNDOF line, and constructed a road called “Sufa 53,” which cuts through Syrian territories in some areas to a depth of up to two kilometers, according to Enab Baladi‘s correspondent, as reported by Israeli media.

The Israeli security movements coincided with repeated strikes near the Israeli-Syrian border.

Since the beginning of this year, the pace of security operations on the southern Syrian border adjacent to the occupied Syrian Golan has increased, with Israel announcing a series of security operations during which it seized drug smuggling operations and foiled several infiltration attempts into its territories by individuals it said were linked to Iran.

During previous infiltrations, Israeli forces arrested Syrian citizens from those areas, which are supposed to be under Syrian government control, between the 1974 UNDOF line and the “Sufa 53” road.