Photo taken from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights shows Israeli tanks around the demilitarized buffer zone, in Quneitra city in southwest Syria, on December 13, 2024. (Photo by AFP)

Damascus, December 16 (RHC)-- Israeli tanks and armored vehicles have rolled into several towns in Syria’s Quneitra, destroying streets, as well as water supply networks and electricity poles in the country’s southwestern province.

Reports said on Sunday that a large number of Quneitra residents had refused to heed a call by the Israel military to evacuate.  Thus, the reports added, the Israeli forces damaged water supply networks and power lines in a deliberate attempt to cut off life support to the areas that they had newly occupied. 

In the town of al-Hamidiyah, the occupation troops cut down the trees on both sides of roads and destroyed power poles.

Early on Sunday, the Israeli occupation launched airstrikes targeting the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus.  According to the Israeli media, the Zionist military destroyed missile warehouses and launchers near Qastal in the Qalamoun area of Damascus’ countryside.

On Saturday, the Israeli soldiers, supported by the regime’s air force, invaded an empty command center of the Syrian army in al-Hamidiyah and searched for alleged weapons.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said late Saturday that the Israeli army had fired 61 missiles at targets in Syria in less than five hours.

Israel started its push to grab more Syrian land on December 8, after foreign-backed militants led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) announced the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s government following a rapid two-week onslaught.

Israeli forces seized the so-called buffer zone, which separates the occupied Golan Heights from the rest of Syria, in violation of a UN-brokered 1974 disengagement agreement.

They occupied the summit of Jabal al-Shaykh which provides an observation point for areas in Syria and Lebanon.  They further advanced beyond the so-called buffer zone toward Damascus, with the regime's warplanes conducting nearly 500 aerial assaults on Syria.

The Israeli military said its attacks destroyed Syria's navy and 90 percent of the country's surface-to-air missile systems.