Report: Syrian border villagers and rebels collecting weapons and handing them to IDF

Video from inside Syria shows crateloads of weapons and ammunition being loaded into trucks; IDF soldier says some contain ‘chemical warfare material’

Screen capture from undated video of Syrian army weapons and ammunition collected by villagers to be handed over to the IDF. Soldiers and villagers pixelated for security reasons. (Channel 12; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
Screen capture from undated video of Syrian army weapons and ammunition collected by villagers to be handed over to the IDF. Soldiers and villagers pixelated for security reasons. (Channel 12; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

Syrian villagers on the border with Israel have been collecting weapons and ammunition left in the area by the army and handing them over to the Israel Defense Forces, Channel 12 reported Monday.

In a video broadcast by the channel, hundreds of crates containing ammunition and weapons could be seen gathered and then loaded onto trucks.

According to the report, rebels who swept out the Assad regime last week are also helping in the operation.

The weapons apparently come from Syrian army bases and outposts where soldiers abandoned their positions amid the rebel takeover. Some were also leftovers from the years of civil war in Syria, the report said.

IDF soldiers at the scene explained that some of the weapons contained “chemical warfare material.”

These included hand grenades they said contained CS gas, commonly used as tear gas.

One soldier said there were crateloads of such grenades. They cause irritation and must not be touched directly, he said.

Screen capture from undated video of IDF soldiers in Syria displaying grenades they said were filled with CS gas and were handed over to the IDF by local villagers. (Channel 12: Used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

Israel entered a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights hours after the rebels took Damascus. Israel has said it will not become involved in the conflict in Syria and that its seizure of the buffer zone established in 1974 was a temporary defensive move that would last only until it could guarantee security along the frontier.

The Channel 12 report said that that security officials are seeking to establish cooperation with residents of border villages in the buffer, who in the past have worked with Israeli security to prevent hostile actors from entering the area.

The threat of such hostile force could be a factor in the IDF’s activities in creating a line of defense in the buffer zone for residents on the Israeli-controlled side of the Golan Heights, while it is still able to, Channel 12 said.

Haaretz reported that the IDF says there has been contact with the Syrian Druze, including meetings during which a request was made to gather weapons that were looted from abandoned Syrian army sites.

However, according to that report, villagers on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights have asked the new Syrian regime and other Arab countries to push Israel out of the area and were concerned over how long the Israeli military would remain.

Meanwhile, the Ynet outlet cited Russia’s state-owned Sputnik network as saying an IDF helicopter landed near a Syrian military facility on Monday and dropped off soldiers who entered the site. The soldiers remained for about 20 minutes before leaving and flying south, the report said.

Last week, Ynet cited Sputnik as saying an IDF helicopter landed in the al-Qalamoun suburb of Damascus.

Sputnik has been denounced by some as a Russian disinformation outfit.

An Israeli military vehicle crosses the fence, returning from the buffer zone with Syria, near the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, on December 10, 2024. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP)

Israel launched a major campaign after the fall of the Assad regime on December 8 to destroy the Syrian military’s strategic military capabilities, in a bid to prevent them from falling into the hands of hostile elements. Targets have included chemical weapons sites, missiles, air defenses, and air force and navy targets.

In an interview with the Syrian TV news channel on Saturday, the leader of the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who spearheaded the overthrow of the Assad regime, said that Israel had “no more excuses” to carry out airstrikes in Syria.

Also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Julani, Ahmad al-Sharaa said that the recent IDF attacks on Syrian soil had crossed red lines and threatened an unjustified escalation in the region.

But he also appeared to indirectly respond to Israeli concerns and offer reassurance that the new Syrian government would not threaten the Jewish state or allow Iran to reestablish itself in Syria. He said that Syria was exhausted by years of civil war and that at this stage it would not be dragged into conflicts that may lead to further destruction, but would rather focus on reconstruction and stability.

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