Six Israeli soldiers were wounded, including three seriously, after coming under fire by gunmen during an arrest operation in southern Syria early Friday morning, the military said.

The operation came as Israel is reportedly preparing for the possibility of attacks from Syria, either from Syrian troops or terror operatives.

According to the Israel Defense Forces, shortly before 3 a.m., soldiers of the 55th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade set out to the Syrian village of Beit Jinn — located some seven kilometers (4.3 miles) east of Israel’s border — to detain two members of the al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group) terror organization, acting on intelligence information collected in recent weeks indicating that they were planning attacks on Israel.

The pair are brothers, with one considered by the IDF to be the “main” suspect. The military said that the pair had previously launched rockets at Israel.

Israeli troops arrested the two brothers while they were in their beds at home. As troops began leaving with the two suspects, they came under fire from unknown assailants, according to the IDF.

The military said the troops returned fire, and the Israeli Air Force also provided support with strikes from helicopters and drones. Fighter jets also conducted several strikes on predetermined targets, the IDF said.

According to Syrian media, at least 13 people were killed by the Israeli strikes. The military said that it had killed several gunmen in the fighting, without specifying a number.

Additionally, during the clash, a Syrian suspect who ran toward the Israeli forces was detained.

The gunfire mostly targeted an army Humvee, which got stuck. The troops inside were forced to abandon the vehicle inside Beit Jinn. Later, the IDF bombed the Humvee from the air to remove the risk of it being captured.

As a result of the gunfire, two officers and a reservist were seriously hurt. Another reservist was moderately injured, and two additional reserve soldiers were lightly hurt, the army said.

The troops were airlifted by IAF helicopters to hospitals in Israel for treatment. Two of the seriously injured soldiers were taken to Rambam Medical Center in Haifa and are currently receiving treatment in the surgical ward before being transferred to the intensive care unit.

Following the incident, Syria condemned the operation as a “war crime.”

“Syria denounces… the criminal aggression” of the IDF, Syria’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that such acts aim to “ignite the region” in conflict.

The IDF has been deployed to nine posts inside southern Syria for nearly a year, since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024. They are mostly within a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the border between the countries. Two posts are on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon.

Troops have been operating in areas up to around 15 kilometers (nine miles) inside Syria, aiming to capture weapons that Israel says could pose a threat to the country if they fall into the hands of “hostile forces.”

Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya is a Sunni faction that forms part of the broader Muslim Brotherhood political network.

The armed wing of the group, the al-Fajr Forces, established in the 1980s, repeatedly targeted Israel from Lebanon amid the war last year with Hezbollah, often working in conjunction with the Shiite Lebanese terror group.

Amid the war, the IDF said it struck members of the group as well as its infrastructure in both Lebanon and Syria.

The IDF said the group also closely cooperates with Hamas in both Lebanon and Syria, and maintains military sites in southern Lebanon and infrastructure along the Syria-Lebanon border and in the Beit Jinn area.

On Wednesday, Defense Minister Israel Katz told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that there are armed groups within Syria that are considering invading Israel’s Golan Heights.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, Katz said that Israel is “not on track” for a security deal or normalization with Damascus, and is preparing for scenarios in which Syrian forces, or various militias within the country, attempt to attack Israeli communities or again threaten Syrian Druze communities.

Katz told the committee that Houthis are among the forces operating in Syria, with the Iran-backed Yemeni terror group weighing a ground invasion of the Golan Heights, the report added.