Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: The Israeli attack on Beit Jinn is a war crime
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the Israeli attack on the village of Beit Jinn, in the south of the country, on Friday, as a full-fledged war crime.
In a statement, the ministry said: “The Syrian Arab Republic strongly condemns the criminal assault carried out by an Israeli army patrol, which infiltrated the territory of the town of Beit Jinn in the Damascus countryside and openly attacked residents and their property. This led to direct clashes after the townspeople confronted the attacking patrol and forced it to withdraw from Syrian territory.”
It added that Israel’s decision, “after its infiltration attempt failed, to target the town of Beit Jinn with brutal and deliberate shelling constitutes a full-fledged war crime, after committing a horrific massacre that claimed the lives of more than ten civilians, including women and children, and caused a large displacement movement due to the ongoing indiscriminate and intentional bombardment of civilian homes.”
Syria held the Israeli authorities “fully responsible for this dangerous aggression and the resulting casualties and destruction,” considering that “the continuation of these criminal attacks threatens regional security and stability and is part of a systematic policy aimed at destabilizing the situation and imposing an aggressive reality by force.”
What happened?
Earlier today, the Israeli army announced that it had carried out an operation in southern Syria “to detain suspects.”
In a statement, the army said that “during Thursday night and Friday morning, and based on information gathered in recent weeks, the forces carried out an operation aimed at detaining suspects belonging to the Islamic Group (Jamaa Islamiyya).”
The statement added that “the suspects were operating in the village of Beit Jinn in southern Syria and carrying out terrorist activities against civilians in the State of Israel,” noting that six Israeli soldiers were injured during the exchanges of fire, three of them seriously.
The Islamic Group, active in Lebanon and Syria, is an ally of the Hamas movement.
During the early months of the confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel, which began in October 2023 amid the war in the Gaza Strip, the Islamic Group repeatedly claimed rocket attacks toward northern Israel. The group and its armed wing were targeted several times by Israeli strikes during that period.
