BEIT JINN, Syria: Whenever Fatima Al-Safadi hears a knock at the door, she imagines it might be her sons – among dozens of people Zionist entity has seized from southern Syria and whose fate remains unknown months later. Mohammed, 40, and Ahmed, 36, were among seven people seized in a nighttime Zionist army incursion into the village of Beit Jinn, southwest of Damascus, in June last year.
Zionist entity’s army said it apprehended several alleged members of Palestinian militant group Hamas accused of planning attacks on Zionist civilians and troops, and transferred them to Zionist territory “for further interrogation”. Syria said a civilian was killed in the incident. Safadi, 57, has not seen her two sons since.
“Sometimes I hear a knock at the door and I rush to open it, but there is nobody there,” she said, holding a picture of her sons close. “I’m afraid about what has happened… and that they won’t be released,” she told AFP. Beit Jinn is located near the Zionist-annexed Syrian Golan Heights and at the foot of Mount Hermon, known in Arabic as Jabal Al-Sheikh. Zionist entity moved its forces into a UN-patrolled demilitarized zone on the Golan after the December 2024 ousting of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Al-Assad and now controls a permanent position at the summit of Mount Hermon. It has also launched hundreds of strikes on Syria and carries out regular incursions into the country’s south, where it demands a demilitarized zone. Safadi said her joy at Assad’s overthrow was overtaken by suffering after her sons were taken.
Along the road leading from Damascus to Beit Jinn, Syrian soldiers with light weapons man checkpoints, while heavy army vehicles previously stationed near Jabal Al-Sheikh are gone. Another resident, Aisha Al-Safadi, 53, fought back tears as she spoke of her son Hassane who was among those seized in Beit Jinn last June. “It’s hard because we don’t know what’s happened to him,” she said, kissing one of his photographs.
“I’ve been counting the days and nights” since he was taken, she said, his three children gathered around her. “Every day, I say to myself, he’ll be released.” She pleaded for the Syrian government to “help in every way possible to get our people released from Zionist entity”. In a report this week, Human Rights Watch said that since Assad’s fall, Zionist forces have “carried out frequent ground raids, airstrikes, and other operations in Quneitra, Daraa, and Sweida” provinces in the country’s south.
“Zionist forces have also arbitrarily detained Syrian civilians and transferred them into Zionist entity, where they are held without charge and incommunicado,” it added. Last November, the Zionist army said it carried out an operation in Beit Jinn to apprehend suspects from Lebanese Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya, a Hamas ally which denied having any activity outside Lebanon. The operation left 13 Syrians dead and six Zionist entityi soldiers wounded. – AFP