Israeli forces pushed into parts of Quneitra and Daraa provinces in southern Syria on Sunday, bulldozing farmland and setting up military checkpoints, according to local sources. Residents told the BBC that troops uprooted hundreds of trees and sealed off roads between villages, cutting farmers and herders off from their land.

Local sources said a patrol of three tanks and three military vehicles entered an area west of the town of Saida al-Jawlan in southern Quneitra. Syria's state news agency SANA reported that another unit began clearing olive groves west of the al-Hanout farm. In western Daraa, the Syrian Observatory said an Israeli patrol set up a checkpoint in the al-Aqrabiya area of the Yarmouk Basin. SANA said the troops later withdrew.

In the village of Turunja in northern Quneitra, one resident estimated that between 200 and 300 dunams of olive, apple and cherry orchards had been razed. He said troops blocked the road to the neighbouring village of Hadar with earth berms and kept residents away from a new military position on Hamriya hill. The BBC could not independently verify these estimates. Israeli forces on Sunday released two young men they had detained a day earlier while they worked in olive fields near the village.

Syria's foreign ministry condemned the incursions "in the strongest terms", calling them a violation of the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity. It urged the international community to hold Israel to international law and relevant UN resolutions.

The UN human rights office has said it documented about 280 armed Israeli incursions into Syrian territory in September, the highest monthly figure this year. Israel's mission in Geneva told Reuters that Israel does not seek to control Syrian territory and that its presence in a buffer zone is temporary, intended to protect its citizens from security threats.