TEHRAN – Recent developments in southern Syria highlight a sharp escalation in military actions by the Israeli regime, accompanied by a systematic expansion of its illegal presence across the provinces of Quneitra, Daraa, and adjoining highland areas. 

Local accounts report that Israeli occupation forces (IOF) advanced from Western Tal Ahmar toward Eastern Tal Ahmar in Quneitra with armored vehicles and tanks, reinforcing a pattern of deepening entrenchment across key strategic hills. 

The reactivation of the Hod Ha-Hanit reserve brigade under the regime’s 210th Division further underscores an operational shift from sporadic raids to permanent positioning, with IOF units conducting wide-ranging search operations and detentions in Quneitra, including the seizure of civilians in Khan Arnabah.

Since the collapse of the previous Syrian government in late 2024, Israel has intensified its violations of Syrian territorial sovereignty. Hundreds of incursions, widespread arrests, military road deployments, and fresh checkpoint networks have effectively redrawn parts of southern Syria without any legal mandate. 

The regime’s Security Minister, Israel Katz, openly declared that IOF forces would remain indefinitely on Mount Hermon and inside the “security zone,” areas the regime now treats as a strategic buffer despite being internationally recognized as Syrian territory.

Against this backdrop, the highly publicized tour of southern Syria by Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by senior military and intelligence officials, demonstrated the regime’s confidence in its new foothold. 

The visit, presented domestically as an “urgent security matter,” occurred just hours after Netanyahu postponed a corruption-trial hearing and days after diplomatic talks between Syria’s President Ahmad al-Sharaa and U.S. President Donald Trump. 

The timing signals that Netanyahu sought to project authority over a region undergoing political realignment while asserting de facto control over Syrian land.

Yet beneath the rhetoric of “defense” lies a deeper strategic driver: water. Southern Syria contains some of the most vital hydrological assets in the Levant. 

The Quneitra–Daraa corridor holds the al-Mantara Dam, Quneitra’s largest, feeding eight other reservoirs. The Ruqqad tributary and the Yarmouk River Basin form the backbone of agricultural and residential water access for hundreds of thousands of Syrians. 

Reports increasingly indicate that the Israeli regime is asserting control over these water bodies, reducing Syria’s access and tightening leverage over both Syria and Jordan. Farmers in the Ruqqad valley now dig wells five times deeper than a decade ago, illustrating how water scarcity is being compounded by military occupation.

Control of Jabal al-Sheikh, the surrounding basins, and the Yarmouk system grants the occupying regime unparalleled surveillance capabilities and the ability to shape the region’s water and energy future. 

As the Zionist regime seeks alternatives to counter emerging pipeline corridors, securing southern Syria’s water resources and the strategic depth surrounding them has become a central objective.

In essence, the expanded Israeli regime occupation in southern Syria is not merely a breach of sovereignty; it is part of a broader campaign to command the region’s most valuable natural resource. 

By tightening its grip over southern Syria’s water resources, the regime weakens the Arab nation’s collective capacity, transforms water into a tool of strategic pressure, and positions itself to dictate the hydrological future of the Levant.