Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,
Israeli military vehicles rolled into the town of Hadr in Syria’s Quneitra Governorate days ago and raised the Israeli flag over the town's entrance. Locals say they also closed all but one road leading into or out of the town, and established a checkpoint on that road as well.
Though Israel routinely raids Quneitra's towns and villages of late, raising the Israeli government's flag over a town is more provocative than what usually happens in these incidents, and like most of Israel’s military forays on Syrian soil, they've yet to issue a statement to even attempt to explain the purpose of the operation.
Hadr is a relatively small town of about 5,000 people along the frontier between Quneitra Governorate and the UNDOF demilitarized zone, a zone which has subsequently been occupied militarily by Israel. Some suburbs of Hadr extend into the demilitarized zone.
Israel also launched operations against multiple other villages in Quneitra earlier this week, including Saida al-Golan and Saida al-Hanout. They captured two young men who were herding sheep to the west of the village.
The troops also captured two village elders in Saida al-Golan, though the elders were ultimately released without incident. The fate of the shepherds remains uncertain, and again the IDF has not commented.
As for the flag-raising incident, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which the mainstream media had long relied on as its main anti-Assad source throughout the prior war, detailed the following of the "provocative act":
Al-Quneitra province: Israeli forces raised the Israeli flag at the entrance of Hadr Town in northern Al-Quneitra countryside [on Wednesday], raising local questions regarding the escalation in the area.
According to sources, these forces closed secondary roads leading to the town from the side of Al-Qanaif checkpoints, and only kept the main road leading to the town open.
This isn't the first time the Israeli flag has been spotted in these southern towns:
A day before these operations, Israeli troops stopped a wedding convoy near the town of Mashirfa, searching the wedding goers before firing shots in the air and scaring them off. No casualties or detentions were reported in this incident.