There is a new boss in this front-line village. It isn’t the group of former rebels who overthrew a half-century of Assad family rule four months ago, and installed themselves as Syria’s government. Nor is it any of the armed militias south of the capital, Damascus, about 45 miles to the northeast.
It’s Israel, which, aiming to insulate itself from attacks across the border, took over the former United Nations buffer zone in Syrian territory that includes Al-Hamidiyah along with the strategic high ground nearby.
A newly built Israeli military outpost keeps watch over the village, its lights blazing even during the day, as does a Merkava tank positioned behind a berm. Teenage soldiers staff checkpoints and fan out every day on patrols, checking IDs and limiting the villagers’ movements at night.
At the village’s western edge, about a mile outside Israel’s border fence, bulldozers are carving out a tall barrier of compacted soil. Some of it crosses property that belongs to Eid al-Ali, who watched warily as his goats grazed around the earthworks, an area Israeli soldiers have made off-limits.
Thieves gonna thief
