UPDATES WITH STATEMENT FROM JAMAA ISLAMIYA
By Mohammad Sio and Rania Abu Shamala
ISTANBUL (AA) - At least 13 people were killed, including women and children, and as many were wounded early Friday in an Israeli attack on the town of Beit Jinn and the road leading to Mazraat Beit Jinn in the Damascus countryside.
An Anadolu correspondent, citing local sources, reported that 13 people lost their lives, including two women and two children.
The state-run TV channel Alikhbaria reported that Israeli drones continued to fly over the area following the strikes, particularly along the road linking the two towns.
Many victims are still trapped under the rubble, it added, as the residents are still working to recover them.
Civil Defense teams and two ambulances from the Damascus countryside health directorate entered the area to transport the dead and treat the wounded following the Israeli attack, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.
The broadcaster said dozens of families fled Beit Jinn toward nearby safer areas after the attack.
Earlier, the channel reported that an Israeli patrol had entered the town and briefly clashed with local residents before withdrawing.
The Israeli army said in a statement that six Israeli soldiers were injured, including three in critical condition, during the operation.
It claimed that it detained members of “the Jamaa Islamiya,” alleging that they “operated in the area of Beit Jinn in southern Syria and advanced attacks against Israeli civilians.”
In a statement, Jamaa Islamiya said that it was “surprised by what has been circulated in various media outlets, in which the Israeli occupation attempted to link the group to the attack on the town of Beit Jinn and accused it of conducting activities there.”
It condemned “the Israeli assault on Beit Jinn and its peaceful residents,” and offered condolences to the people of the town following the deaths caused by the recent airstrikes.
The group stressed that it “does not carry out any activity outside Lebanon” and rejects “the insertion of its name into actions that have nothing to do with it.”
It also affirmed its commitment to “what the Lebanese state agreed to in the ceasefire deal with the occupation (on Nov. 27, 2024), and to operating within the framework of the law and state institutions.”
The Israeli army has staged 48 raids in southern Syria in November.
Government data showed that the Israeli army has carried out more than 1,000 airstrikes on Syria and more than 400 cross-border raids into the southern provinces since December 2024.
After the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in late 2024, Israel expanded its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights by seizing the demilitarized buffer zone, a move that violated the 1974 Disengagement Agreement with Syria.