Israeli soldiers patroll at the cease-fire line, near the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights village of Majdal Shams in July. File Photo by Atef Safardi/EPA
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Human Rights Watch said Wednesday that Israeli forces occupying parts of southern Syria committed "a war crime" by subjecting residents to a range of abuses -- including forced displacement and the demolition of homes -- and called for the suspension of military support to Israel.
The New York-based international human rights organization said in a report released in Beirut that the abuses also included denial of access to livelihoods and arbitrary detention of a number of Syrians and their "unlawful transfer" to Israel.
The rights group said that after the ouster of the Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime in December, Israel advanced into the U.N.-monitored demilitarized zone that separates the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from the portion of Quneitra governorate that remained under Syrian control.
Israel has established nine military posts stretching from Mount Hermon through Quneitra city to parts of western Daraa and has intensified airstrikes on military infrastructure, according to the group.
