Israeli troops killed two gunmen in southern Syria on Saturday evening, the military said in a statement Sunday morning, marking a relatively rare incident in the area.

According to the Israel Defense Forces, reservists of the Etzioni Brigade opened fire and killed the men, described as “armed terrorists,” inside Israel’s buffer zone.

The pair was identified approaching Israel from an area near the Druze town of Hader, around a kilometer from the Israeli border fence. Soldiers stationed in the area fired on the two, killing them, and their bodies were captured.

Israeli security officials were looking into their identities and affiliations.

On Thursday, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israeli forces would remain inside security zones in Lebanon, Syria, and the Gaza Strip, “without any time limit.”

The IDF has been deployed to nine posts inside southern Syria since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024. They are mostly within a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the border........

© The Times of Israel