Israel has detained dozens of Syrians. Families are desperate for answers

AIN THAKAR, Syria (AP) — Ali al-Abdullah spent more than five months in Israeli detention centers last year after being taken from a village in southwestern Syria . He said he was beaten and placed in solitary confinement, but that no charges were ever brought against him.

Kinan Baker was detained by Israeli forces last year from a nearby Syrian village in a middle-of-the-night raid of his home. His family has not heard from him since and does not know where he is or why he is being held.

Al-Abdullah and Baker are among dozens of Syrians apprehended by Israel since its forces seized a U.N.-mandated buffer zone following the ouster of Bashar Assad nearly two years ago. Many were physically and verbally abused during raids and arrests and inside Israeli prisons, according to human rights groups, two former detainees and two relatives of current detainees.

Israel’s seizure of the buffer zone in December 2024 was met with resentment across Syria – especially among families living within or adjacent to the 235-square-kilometer (91-square-mile) area. The euphoria they felt following Assad’s ouster quickly evaporated as Israel introduced checkpoints and patrols in their villages and embarked on a flurry of detentions.

Families of detainees say they feel hopeless and powerless, and that their pleas to the Syrian government and the U.N. for information about their loved ones have fallen on deaf ears.

“We can only hold on to hope in God, and pray that he reunites us with our son,” said Huda Baker, the mother of Kinan.

The Israeli military said its presence in and around the buffer zone is needed to defend its northern border from Hezbollah , a Lebanese militant group backed by Iran that fought closely alongside Assad during Syria's 13-year civil war.

Israeli “troops question and detain individuals when there is reasonable suspicion of their involvement in terrorist activity,” the military said. It rejected allegations of abusing detainees and refused to address specific cases because detainees and their families would not provide their Syrian government ID numbers.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed it — a move not recognized by most of the international community. To prevent future conflict, a 1974 agreement established a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in southern Syria adjacent to the Golan.

After seizing the buffer zone, Israel declared the 1974 agreement void.

Israel is skeptical of Syria's new leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was previously the leader of a militant group once linked to al-Qaida . Al-Sharaa has revamped his image in recent years and built strong ties with the United States and Europe, but Israel remains wary.

Israel has erected military outposts and launched strikes, raids and incursions in Quneitra and Daraa provinces, which straddle the buffer zone. Its military activity has even reached the countryside southwest of Damascus, the capital.

Al-Sharaa has demanded Israel withdraw from the buffer zone, and a spokesperson for the Quneitra province, Mohammed Saeed, said Israel’s allegations of militant activity there were “baseless lies.”

The civil war that led to Assad's ouster “freed the country from occupying forces, whether they were Iranian or Hezbollah forces present in the area,” said Saeed.

Forty-nine Syrians have been detained since December 2024, though 16 have been released over the past year, according to Syrian government officials and U.N.-backed investigators who have accused Israel of human rights violations in Syria.

The Syria Justice and Accountability Center, a human rights group based in Washington, said former detainees and relatives who witnessed arrests have alleged ill-treatment or torture. In interviews with the organization, former detainees said they were held in stress positions and threatened at gunpoint, said Salma Daoudi, a researcher at SJAC.

Al-Abdullah, 20, was detained in June 2025 at an Israeli checkpoint in the village of Ain Thakar, which overlooks the buffer zone. The soldiers asked whether he or anyone in his village was affiliated with armed Islamist militant groups. He said he was unaffiliated and that no such groups were present in his village.

He was then placed into handcuffs, and for the next 5 months he was shuttled between different Israeli detention centers.

While he was in solitary confinement at two different prisons, “there was no ventilation, only light," and he would only be uncuffed for a couple of minutes each day to eat.

“Sleeping was not allowed. You had to remain seated cross-legged the whole time and were not allowed to lie down. You would spend seven days like that.”

Huda Baker was asleep when the Israeli military raided her family home in August 2025. She said the military threatened to blow up the house if her son Kinan, 39, did not turn himself over within five minutes.

Her son walked out, she said, at which point he was blindfolded and handcuffed. He hasn't been heard from since.

While out walking in the village of Tranje in June 2025, Wadih Baker — no relation to Kinan — came across an Israeli army patrol. He was apprehended and told he would be released after five minutes.

He was detained for roughly 15 months. “I was held at a post near the Syrian border for one day … and then the next day they transferred me to a prison.”

Both he and al-Abdullah said they were held in Israel's Ofer Prison, near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, and later the Sde Teiman Prison, in the Negev Desert.

Israeli and international rights groups have said that Palestinian prisoners in those facilities have faced torture and ill-treatment .

At least one Syrian was apprehended from the U.N. buffer zone before Assad was overthrown.

Saddam Saad Eldin was 16 in April 2024 when he was detained by Israeli troops while working in an olive grove.

His father, Hassan Saad Eldin, 47, said he has no information about where his son is and that Israeli troops have prevented him from accessing his farmland in the village of Jabata al-Khashab.

“They bulldozed an area of 10 to 12 dunums (2.5-3 acres) of olive groves and completely demolished a full livestock stable,” he said, pointing to a large dirt roadblock that obstructs his access.

The accusation that his village may harbor armed groups, whether Iran-backed or otherwise, baffles him.

“We are civilians — farmers and agricultural workers — with no external allegiances,” he said.

He speaks with former detainees upon their release, hoping for news about his son. A former detainee who saw Saddam told him that he hadn't been harmed. Still, he worries about his son when other former detainees discuss abuses they witnessed in prisons.

Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press producer Malak Harb in Beirut, and news director Erin Cunningham in Jerusalem contributed to this story.