Israeli Raid in Southern Syria Kills at Least 13, Syrian Officials Say

The raid was one of Israel’s deadliest cross-border incursions since Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s former dictator, was ousted last year.Damage in Beit Jinn, a town in southern Syria, after an Israeli raid on Friday.Credit...Ali Ahmed Al-Najjar/ReutersNov. 28, 2025An Israeli raid into southern Syria on Friday killed at least 13 people and left several Israeli soldiers wounded, according to Syrian health officials and the Israeli military, in one of the bloodiest cross-border incursions since the fall of the Assad regime last year.Israeli ground forces carried out the overnight raid in Beit Jinn, a Syrian town near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.The Israeli military said in a statement that troops had moved in to detain suspected Islamist militants in the town and that they had returned fire — including with air support — after coming under attack from armed gunmen. Syria’s state news agency, SANA, said that Israeli forces had shelled Beit Jinn before entering the town, where they were confronted by local residents.SANA, citing the head of the health directorate in the Damascus countryside governorate, said that at least 13 residents had been killed and at least two dozen others wounded in the Israeli attack. Two children were among the dead, SANA reported.Several Israeli reservists were also injured, three of them severely, the Israeli military said.The Israeli raid was the latest in a series of steadily escalating cross-border incursions into southern Syria since Bashar al-Assad, the country’s longtime dictator, was overthrown by Islamist rebels last year.Since the collapse of the Assad regime, the Israeli military has seized a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights and territory in southwestern Syria. The Israeli military has also launched hundreds of airstrikes across the country, including on the Syrian capital, Damascus.Israeli officials have defended the military campaign as an effort to ensure that hostile forces do not entrench themselves along the Israeli border.ImageWounded people in a hospital in Damascus, Syria, on Friday, after an Israeli raid in Beit Jinn.Credit...Yamam Al Shaar/ReutersIn interviews, residents of Beit Jinn described scenes of carnage after they were awakened in the early hours of Friday by heavy gunfire and the roar of helicopters. Many were unable to flee amid the Israeli bombardment and were trapped inside their homes, residents said.At the emergency ward of Al-Mouwasat Hospital in Damascus, where many of the wounded were brought on Friday, Asala Daher, 36, stood beside her injured husband, Iyad, as he lay writhing in pain on a stretcher.“We were terrified,” Ms. Daher said.She recalled being stuck inside her house when her husband was struck in the neck by a piece of shrapnel. The family tried to stop the bleeding with a makeshift bandage, she said. Their car was also destroyed, and they were able to flee over an hour after the bombing started, she said.Syria’s civil defense agency, known as the White Helmets, said in a statement that medical and rescue teams had been prevented from entering Beit Jinn because Israeli forces were firing on anyone who approached the town.ImageA damaged home in Beit Jinn. The Israeli military said the operation on Friday had successfully detained a number of militants. Credit...Ali Ahmed Al-Najjar/ReutersThe Israeli military said the operation on Friday had successfully detained a number of militants belonging to Jamaa Islamiya, a Sunni Islamist political party based in Lebanon that fought alongside the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah during its recent war with Israel.The attack also underscored how Syria’s new government, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, still faces significant security hurdles as it tries to rebuild a nation reeling from a bloody 13-year civil war and decades of authoritarian rule. The country remains gripped by repeated bouts of sectarian unrest, and the central government in Damascus does not have full control over all of Syria’s territory.President Trump has cast himself as a broker of peace in the Middle East, and his administration has pressed Syria to join the Abraham Accords, the U.S.-sponsored agreements from his first term that normalized relations between Israel and several Muslim-majority countries.While Israeli and Syrian officials have in recent months had U.S.-mediated talks aimed at de-escalating tensions, Syria has so far ruled out normalizing relations with Israel. And there has been little sign of progress on a more limited security agreement between the two countries.The Israeli raid on Friday provoked uproar from Syrian officials and risked further undermining that push for peace.“What happened in Beit Jinn is a crime in every sense of the word,” Asaad al-Shaibani, Syria’s foreign minister, said in a statement, adding that the attack had “deliberately targeted innocent civilians.”Residents of Beit Jinn were still struggling to take stock of the devastation.“So many people are dying,” Ms. Daher said. “There has to be a solution.”Dayana Iwaza and Isabel Kershner contributed reporting.Euan Ward is a Times reporter covering Lebanon and Syria. He is based in Beirut.A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: At Least 13 Die as Israel Hits Syria, Officials Say. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | SubscribeSKIP