New Delhi, Nov. 29 -- In a brazen act defying international law, Israeli forces struck a Syrian village causing civilian casualties and mass displacement, escalating tensions in an already volatile region.

In the shadowed predawn hours of Friday, Israeli ground forces pierced the tense borderlands of southern Syria, storming the rural village of Beit Jinn in a raid that claimed at least 13 civilian lives, including women and children, and ignited a fresh firestorm of condemnation from the United Nations. The operation, unfolding just 50 kilometers southwest of Damascus near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, displaced dozens of families who fled under artillery fire and airstrikes, their homes reduced to smoldering ruins amid the Quneit...