Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that Israel will not permit the military presence of the new Syrian government in the region’s southern border.
Netanyahu reaffirmed his demand at a military ceremony in Israel on Sunday that the Quneitra, Daraa, and Suweyda provinces be completely demilitarized.
In reference to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham organization, which spearheaded the offensive that overthrew longtime Syrian leader President Bashar al-Assad in December, Netanyahu said, “We will not allow forces from the HTS organization or the new Syrian army to enter the area south of Damascus.”
He also reaffirmed that Israel would not tolerate threats made to the Syrian Druze community, which reside in the Golan Heights, an illegally Israeli-occupied region of Syria, and other areas.
Israel brokered a 1974 United Nations agreement by exploiting al-Assad’s fall to create a buffer zone between southern Syria and the Golan Heights, breaking it.
The , Druze are a religious minority found across several countries in the region. Many Syrians have voiced their opposition to Israel’s expansion into the southwest of the nation, and thousands of people in the occupied Golan Heights have refused to accept Israeli citizenship.
However, in Israel, the majority of the Druze population supports the Israeli state and men are conscripted into the military.
Israel occupies approximately two-thirds of the Golan Heights, with the UN-administered buffer zone spanning a narrow, 400-square-kilometre (154-sq-mile) area. Syria has ruled the rest of the world.
A ceasefire agreement between Israel and Syria in 1974 established a demilitarized buffer zone around the Golan Heights.
The Israeli military moved within the buffer zone shortly after al-Assad’s fall last December, and it has since launched hundreds of airstrikes against Syrian military installations.
Israel has claimed for years that it is destroying Iranian military targets, which is how it has justified its attacks on Syria. Iran has claimed that none of its forces are currently stationed in Syria, and the new Syrian government has stated that it has no desire to fight Israel.
According to Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, Israeli forces are currently building two posts on Mount Hermon in Syria and seven others in the buffer zone.
Netanyahu stated on Sunday that Israeli forces would remain on Mount Hermon and a buffer zone in the occupied Golan Heights “for an indefinite period to protect our communities and thwart any threat.”
Source: Aljazeera
Leave a Reply