Hreisoun

On March 10, 2025, forces affiliated with the Jolani regime stormed Hreisoun, a small Alawite village in the Baniyas area. The village offered no resistance. Its inhabitants were civilians living ordinary lives in a rural community. They were killed for their identity. Among the martyrs whose names were confirmed: engineer Urwa Ahmad Ayoub, a man whose profession speaks to years of education and contribution to his community, and Mundhir Shariba. One detail from Hreisoun perhaps captures the character of the violence most clearly: the attackers killed not only the people but their pet animals. A dog belonging to one of the martyrs was killed alongside its owner. In virtually every human culture, the killing of domestic animals in a raid signals not security but terror and humiliation — a message to the survivors that nothing that belonged to them would be spared. Hreisoun is a microcosm of the March massacres: an unarmed community targeted, individuals executed by name, and a cruelty extended to the smallest and most defenceless living things.