Israeli strikes kill 9 in southwestern Syria

NAWA, Syria (AP) — Israeli strikes in Syria reportedly killed at least nine people in the southwest of the country on Thursday, as Israel accused Turkey of trying to build a “protectorate” in Syria.

Syrian state news agency SANA said that those who died in the strikes were civilians, without giving details. Britain-based war monitor The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that they were armed residents from the Daraa province.

Israel had also struck five cities in Syria late Wednesday, including more than a dozen strikes near a strategic air base in the city of Hama, where Turkey, a key ally of interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, reportedly has interests in having a military presence.

Syria's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the strikes had resulted in the “near-total destruction of the Hama military airport and the injury of dozens of civilians and military personnel.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar accused Turkey of playing a “negative role” in Syria.

“They are doing their utmost to have Syria as a Turkish protectorate, it’s clear that this is their intention," he told a news conference in Paris on Thursday. “We don’t think that it was good when Syria was an Iranian proxy .... And we don’t think that Syria should be” a Turkish protectorate."

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry responded with a statement accusing Israel of “undermining efforts to establish stability in Syria.”

“Israel has become the greatest threat to the security of our region with its attacks targeting the territorial integrity and national unity of the countries in the region,” it said.

Israel has seized parts of southwestern Syria and created a buffer zone there since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, saying it’s to secure Israel’s safety from armed groups. But critics say the military operations have created tensions in Syria and aim to prevent any long-term stability and reconstruction for the war-torn country.

In the city of Nawa in western Daraa province, thousands took part in a procession through the streets to bury the dead.

Imad al Basri, an activist from the city, said that Israeli forces had advanced on Nawa for the first time on Thursday and arrived to the surrounding rural area when “people started to come out with light arms to the area of the incursion and there was an exchange of fire from both sides.”

Israeli soldiers withdrew and the Israeli military began to target the area with artillery shelling and airstrikes, he said, adding that ambulances were prevented from reaching the wounded and dead until the morning. He called on Syria’s new rulers to take a stronger stance.

“Why is the government silent about these incursions?”

Last month, residents in the village of Koawaya in the province had clashed with Israeli troops trying to cross through agricultural land.

On Thursday, the Israeli military dropped flyers in the area of Koawaya warning residents not to carry weapons and not to cross a road on the southwestern edge of the village.

Syria's interim leadership has struggled to appeal to non Sunni Muslim communities. Tensions are still simmering with the Druze community in the south, and the Alawites on the coast are still fearful after clashes between security forces and Assad loyalists led to revenge killings.

Amnesty International said that the killings should be investigated as war crimes and accused government-affiliated militias of deliberately killing civilians.

“Our evidence indicates that government affiliated militias deliberately targeted civilians from the Alawite minority in gruesome reprisal attacks — shooting individuals at close range in cold blood,” Agnès Callamard, secretary-general of the international human rights group, said in a statement. “For two days, authorities failed to intervene to stop the killings.”

The new authorities have, however, made progress in relations with Kurdish-led forces, which control much of the country's northeast. Turkish-backed former insurgent groups allied with the new authorities in Damascus had been fighting with Kurdish forces, but the clashes subsided after a landmark deal was reached between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and the government in Damascus last month.

On Thursday, SANA reported that a prisoner exchange had taken place in Aleppo between the SDF and forces affiliated with the new government in Damascus, with 250 prisoners slated to be released by both sides.

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Kareem Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Abby Sewell contributed to this report from Beirut.