DAMASCUS: Syrian state media said Israeli forces carried out an incursion into the country's south on Sunday, a day after the visiting UN chief urged an end to Israeli violations and respect for Syria's sovereignty.
State news agency SANA said that "Israeli occupation forces carried out an incursion early Sunday into the villages of Maariya and Al-Aarda in the Yarmuk basin in the west of Daraa province".
It said the soldiers, accompanied by three military vehicles and a bulldozer, set up a checkpoint in Al-Aarda, and that forces "dropped leaflets in towns in the Yarmuk basin warning residents against closing roads or obstructing the advance of the vehicles".
After the December 2024 overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, Israel sent troops into the UN-patrolled buffer zone that had separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the Israeli-occupied Golan since 1974.
It has carried out strikes and repeated incursions deeper into Syrian territory.
Israeli officials have said they intend to keep forces in a "security zone" in southern Syria, where they seek a broader demilitarised zone.
Also on Sunday, SANA said Israeli forces fired artillery shells at farmland near the Quneitra province village of Taranja, without reporting casualties.
Visiting UN chief Antonio Guterres on Saturday said that "violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity are unacceptable and must cease."
"What is happening in the region around the Golan Heights is totally unacceptable," he said, emphasising that "the Golan Heights are Syrian territory."
During a meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Saturday, Guterres reaffirmed the UN's "commitment to Syria's sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity, and expressed deep concern regarding violations by Israel" of the 1974 disengagement agreement, a UN statement said.
Israel captured most of the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and later annexed the areas under its control, in a move not recognised by most of the international community.
Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said Saturday that "the continuation of Israeli military actions and the unlawful occupation of our land beyond the 1974 line is a direct threat to the security of the region", demanding an "immediate and unconditional withdrawal".
Last month in the Yarmuk Basin area, state media and a local official said residents of the village of Abidin fled Israeli artillery fire after locals tried to block a road to stop an Israeli patrol that was advancing in the area.
Despite tensions between the neighbours, Israel and Syria's new authorities have held several rounds of direct talks and have agreed to establish an intelligence-sharing mechanism.