The Israeli army announced, on the evening of Monday, 18 August, that it had foiled an attempt by a group of Israeli settlers to establish a settlement inside Syrian territory, after they managed to cross the border fence and penetrate several meters into the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.
The Israeli newspaper Maariv reported on Tuesday, August 19, that Israeli forces received an ‘unusual’ report about movements near the border by the settlement of Alonei HaBashan in the occupied Golan Heights, which takes its name from a biblical region east of the Jordan River that extends into the Golan. They later spotted about ten vehicles carrying settlers from the West Bank.
According to a statement issued by the Israeli forces, the troops returned the infiltrators back into Israeli territory shortly afterward and arrested the suspects on-site in preparation for interrogation by the Israeli police.
The army confirmed that what happened was a “serious incident constituting a criminal offense and endangering citizens and Israeli army forces.”
According to the Israeli army, the families who came from the West Bank had planned to stay for an extended period inside Syrian territory with their children, a decision made without any support from official bodies in Israel.
“Pioneers of HaBashan”
The group that carried out the incursion is known as the “Pioneers of HaBashan” (HaBashan in Hebrew), whose members are right-wing activists from the Samaria area (the northern part of the West Bank). They declared that their goal was to lay the cornerstone for the first Jewish settlement across the fence, under the name “Neve HaBashan.”
The “Northern Uri” movement published a statement entitled “Laying the cornerstone for the Neve HaShan settlement… a pioneering story and devotion to the homeland,” congratulating the “Pioneers of HaBashan” on their step. The statement noted that families and children participated in symbolic ceremonies that included planting flowers and establishing a memorial corner in the name of “Yehuda Dror Yahalom,” one of the Israeli soldiers killed, according to Maariv.
Activists of the movement said, “The land of HaBashan is the inheritance of the ancestors, and empty lands call for return and settlement,” calling on the Israeli government to “remove the enemy from the area and allow the pioneers to settle there.”
Israeli settlers raising a photo of one of the killed soldiers inside Syrian territory – 19 August 2025 (Maariv)
Researcher on Israeli affairs, Yasser Manna, told Enab Baladi that the word “חלוצים – Ḥalutzim” means “the pioneers” or “the vanguards,” and is linked to the historical term of the early Zionist movements that established settlements in Palestine at the beginning of the 20th century.
“HaBashan” is a biblical name referring to a region east of the Jordan River that extends into the Golan Heights, including the areas of Hauran, Golan, and al-Lajat. These are areas located in southern Syria, known in the Jewish religious narrative as fertile land that God gave to the Children of Israel, according to Manna.
Israeli forces had launched an operation named “Arrows of HaBashan” on 8 December 2024, six hours after the fall of the ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Condemnation and internal criticism
The head of the Golan Regional Council, Ori Kelner, criticized what had happened, describing the entry of citizens into Syria as “crossing a red line,” warning of its security, personal, and societal risks.
But the settlers responded with a statement saying they “regret the council head’s attempt to tarnish the reputation of pioneering families, who are working on settlement in the same way the first settlement in the Golan was established after the Six-Day War.”
They considered that establishing a settlement in HaBashan “enhances the security of Golan residents and the rest of the country,” and that the new wall Israel built on the border would not protect them from “a massacre at the hands of the jihadists behind the wall,” according to Maariv.
The “Pioneers of HaBashan” statement also accused the council head of contradiction, pointing out that “he had previously called for helping the Druze, which will not be achieved except through Jewish settlement in the area and the expulsion of all Sunni Muslims from it,” as they put it.
They claimed that “soldiers in the field understand the importance of settlement in HaBashan to enhance security,” contrary to what the army leadership officially declares.
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