Syrians Describe Beatings, Dogs and Sensory Torture in Israeli Detention After West Golan Raids

Ahmed was stopped at an Israeli checkpoint on the street in his own village and told he would be back in five minutes. He was held for more than a year.

According to testimony he gave Al Jazeera in his home in Qatana, Syria, he spent 90 days in handcuffs, thrown to the floor of his cell and beaten with sticks while his hands were restrained behind his back.

"They tighten the cuffs by stamping on them with their feet, until the cuffs bite into the flesh of your wrists and also your buttocks. Sometimes they leave them tightened like this for one or two days until your hands are extremely swollen. Your hands go green, and you can't feel them at all."

Ahmed was released this month. Al Jazeera reports that at least 51 Syrians remain detained inside Israel, many held initially at the Sde Teiman military prison before transfer to Israel Prison Service facilities. The outlet says it has confirmed transfers to Ofer, al-Jalama (Kishon) and Megiddo. A small number have been released.

A second detainee, identified by the pseudonym Mahmoud, was interviewed nine days after his own release. He told Al Jazeera that Israeli troops surrounded his home at 3:30am, called him by name and showed a photo of him pulled from social media. He described being forced to kneel for hours with his forehead to the ground and hands behind his head, developing infected wounds on his knees from the cell floor. He showed the reporter scars on his wrists and ankles from restraints.

Mahmoud also described dogs fitted with metal muzzles used against restrained detainees, and a room he called the "disco room," where loud speakers were used against prisoners. He said he was never charged, never given access to a lawyer, and still does not know why he was released. "Until now I feel unstable; I'm not normal," he said. "I feel crazy sometimes in the night. I go to look at my kids because I can't believe I'm really home."

The testimony comes amid what Al Jazeera documents as an expanding Israeli military presence in southern Syria since the fall of the Assad government in December 2024, beyond the demilitarized zone that has existed under the 1974 disengagement agreement. The Sijil Center, a Syrian monitoring organization, recorded 280 Israeli violations of that agreement in September alone, including incursions, raids, arrests and artillery and machine-gun fire.

Residents told Al Jazeera that Israeli shelling into farmland has become near-daily since early August, idling farmers and shepherds and occasionally killing livestock. In late August, Israeli tanks and armored vehicles blocked the only access road to a UN peacekeeping base near Jubata al-Khashab. UNDOF, the UN force that has monitored the ceasefire line since 1974, confirmed to Al Jazeera that Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints are "preventing UNDOF from conducting its planned and mandated patrol activities."

The allegations of torture rest on detainee testimony gathered on the ground by Al Jazeera; Occupation Watch has not independently verified the accounts. The claim that the Red Cross has been denied access to detainees is referenced in Al Jazeera's reporting but not fully detailed.