Videos uploaded yesterday to YouTube by Syrian opposition groups showcase jihadist infrastructure and document heavy fighting close to the Israeli-Syrian border.
The footage comes amid new Israeli evaluations that predict the Jewish state may have to fight a multi-front war against elements drawn from extremist Sunni groups that have increasingly come to control the opposition. IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz on Sunday spoke to a conference at Bar-Ilan University and sketched scenarios under which jihadists operating along Israel’s border with Syria would instigate a war by kidnapping an Israeli commander and eventually targeting Israeli communities.
The videos are embedded below. The top video is footage from yesterday showing an improvised training camp that has been set up on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. The second video shows heavy shelling in southern Syria – Daraa and Naemeh – close to Israel’s border.
The footage is in line with opposition reports conveyed in recent days by Western media sources. The Associated Press on Friday described “heavy fighting” that had taken place that day “on the edge” of Israel’s Golan Heights, including in Daraa and Quneitra. Quneitra borders the Golan Heights and Daraa, where the uprising against the Bashar al-Assad regime began, is near Israel. Syrian armed forces have in recent days begun to systemically shell civilian areas in Daraa.
The risk that security may deteriorate has been been magnified by the erosion of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), the U.N. peacekeeping force that has for decades been stationed on the Israeli-Syrian border. Earlier this year UNDOF peacekeepers were kidnapped and later released by the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, one of the rebel groups fighting the Assad regime.
Citing heightened risks, several countries subsequently withdrew their contributions to UNDOF, putting the mission on the brink of collapse. UNDOF forces are now moving in armored convoys to boost security, slowing peacekeepers and complicating efforts to monitor the area.