It's been two years, four months, 24 days and five hours, said Syrian man Ahmad Hassan al-Din when asked how long it's been since he last saw his son. In April 2024, Israeli soldiers took Saddam, who had just turned 17, from farmland near the Golan Heights, a part of Syria Israel has occupied since 1967. "Saddam had gone to feed the animals early in the morning," al-Din, who's from the village of Jubata al-Khashab in the Quneitra district near Golan, told DW.
"I called him on the phone, and he told me, 'Everything's fine.' But then later we saw with our own eyes how they took the boy, handcuffed and shackled." Al-Din filmed Israeli soldiers marching his son through fields. The video, which he forwarded to DW, has previously been verified by open-source investigators at France24 and by human rights organizations. "They said they took him because he was trespassing on the territory of the state of Israel," al-Din continued.
"Even though that area is our farmland and we have a valid UN permit to work there." To enter this buffer area, Syrian farmers and shepherds needed a special pass from the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, or UNDOF. The latter was set up to make sure Israeli and Syrian forces kept their distance after a 1974 disengagement agreement. Humanitarian organizations have since discovered Saddam, now 19, is likely in a prison in Israel.
DW asked the Israeli military what Saddam had been charged with and under which legal system, and a spokesperson said they would investigate. At the time of writing, there had been no further response. Since Saddam was taken, the Syrian teenager's story has become one of many similar accounts in this part of southern Syria.
After the fall of the country's dictatorial Assad regime in December 2024, Israel took control of the UN-patrolled demilitarized zone. Senior Israeli politicians declared the 1974 agreement void and said troops would be in the area temporarily to protect Israel from cross-border attacks. However, since then Israel's presence in Syria has become more permanent.
In November 2025, UNDOF told reporters Israel had set up 10 bases in the area. From these bases, Israeli soldiers are making near-daily incursions into the Syrian provinces of Daraa and Quneitra. "These incursions typically involve armored patrols through populated areas, followed by the establishment of temporary checkpoints on main roads, where all passing Syrian civilians are stopped, searched, questioned, and have their phones examined.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
