• A Syrian delegation led by Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani met Israeli officials in Jordan, with US mediation, according to a Syrian diplomatic source quoted by the country’s state news agency, SANA.

Israeli military vehicles advance into southern Syrian village of Ma’ariya

Israeli forces have advanced with several military vehicles into the village of Ma’ariya in the western Deraa countryside, in southern Syria, according to Syrian state broadcaster Al Ikhberiya.

The incursion is the latest in a string of Israeli military movements into Ma’ariya and surrounding villages in the Yarmouk Basin area.

Israeli forces detain Syrian shepherd in Quneitra incursion

Israeli forces have detained a Syrian civilian in the village of Al-Rafid in the southern countryside of Quneitra province on Sunday, Syrian state media reported.

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said an Israeli force comprising several military vehicles advanced west of Al-Rafid, detained the man while he was herding sheep, and took him into the occupied territories.

The incident is the latest in a series of Israeli incursions into southern Syria that have intensified since the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad’s government in December 2024.

US envoy Tom Barrack retracts comment that Syria’s Golan is occupied

US Ambassador Tom Barrack has reasserted Washington’s position that Syria’s Golan Heights belongs to Israel after saying last week that the territory is occupied against “all of the international order”.

Trump’s ambassador to Turkiye and envoy for Syria walked back that comment on Sunday, underscoring Trump’s policy of recognizing Israel’s claimed sovereignty over the stretch of land in southern Syria.

“United States policy on the Golan was set by President Trump in 2019 and is unchanged,” he told the Associated Press in a statement.

Israel occupied the Golan Heights during the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed the territory in 1981. Until Trump backed the Israeli claim to the Syrian territory, no country had recognized the Golan as part of Israel.

Israeli forces raid village in Syria’s Quneitra governorate

Syrian news channel Al Akbhariya says Israeli military vehicles have raided the village of Saida al-Golan in Syria’s Quneitra governorate.

Israeli forces searched a farm in the vicinity of the village, according to the report.

Israel trying to stoke instability in Syria

“The Israelis continue to stoke instability, including through the bombing of an airbase just a few days ago in the north of the country,” according to Michael Ratney, a former US special envoy for Syria under the Obama administration and a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.

He told Al Jazeera that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has built a strong relationship with the Trump administration, which has entered a new phase after the fall of Syria’s longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

The Syrian leader has pledged to distance the country from Iran, which backed al-Assad’s regime, as clear evidence of the growing relationship with Washington.

“It doesn’t surprise me at all that one of his first steps was to ensure” cutting Iran’s access to the Hezbollah armed group in Lebanon, Ratney said.

Addressing the fragile diplomatic track with Israel, Ratney argued that “the US, seemingly, has been on the side of stability in Syria”, and that this helps al-Sharaa show “Israel and the whole region that the US is on his side”.