ISTANBUL 

Syria condemned Friday's Israeli army raid on the town of Beit Jinn in the Damascus countryside as a “criminal assault,” saying the incursion and subsequent airstrikes amounted to a war crime.

A Foreign Ministry statement said an Israeli military patrol crossed into Syrian territory in Beit Jinn, where it confronted local residents and “attacked civilians and their property,” triggering direct clashes that forced the patrol to withdraw.

Israeli forces then launched “deliberate and brutal” strikes on the town after the failed incursion, describing the attack as a “full-fledged war crime,” the statement added.

Syria said it holds Israel “fully responsible” for the raid and its consequences, including casualties and destruction, warning that continued “criminal aggression” threatens regional stability and reflects a systematic effort to destabilize the area and impose “an aggressive reality by force.”

At least 13 people were killed, including women and children, and as many were wounded early Friday in the Israeli attack on the town of Beit Jinn and the road leading to Mazraat Beit Jinn in the Damascus countryside, according to official Syrian media.

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 Jaama Islamiya,” alleging that they “operated in the area of Beit Jinn in southern Syria and advanced attacks against Israeli civilians.”

The Israeli army has staged 47 raids in southern Syria in November.

Government data showed that Israel has carried out over 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.