Israel seizes Golan buffer zone after Syrian troops leave posts
Israel’s prime minister has announced that his forces have temporarily taken control of a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights, saying a 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria “collapsed” as rebels took over the country.
Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to enter the buffer zone and “take command positions from the vicinity” of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
“We will not allow any hostile forces to take root at our borders,” he said.
A Britain-based war observer said Syrian troops on Saturday left positions in Quneitra province, part of which lies within the buffer zone.
On Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces asked residents of five Syrian villages in the area to stay in their homes until further notice.
The Golan Heights is a rocky plateau about 60 kilometers (40 miles) southwest of Damascus.
Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in the final stages of the 1967 Six-Day War and unilaterally annexed the area in 1981. Although the United States did so unilaterally in 2019, the move was not recognized by the international community.
Israel’s move in the buffer zone comes after Syrian rebels captured the capital Damascus and overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad. He and his father have been in power since 1971.
Forces led by Islamist opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered Damascus in the early hours of Sunday before declaring on state television that Syria was now “free”.
Netanyahu said the fall of Assad’s regime was “a historic day in the Middle East.”
“The fall of the Assad regime and the tyranny of Damascus offers great opportunities, but it is also fraught with great dangers,” he said.
He said the events in Syria were the result of Israeli attacks on Iran and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, an Assad ally, and insisted that Israel would “extend a hand of peace” to Syrians who want peace with Israel.
He said the Syrian buffer zone positions occupied by the IDF were “temporary defensive positions until suitable arrangements are found.”
“If we can establish good neighborliness and peaceful relations with the emerging forces in Syria, that is our desire. But if we cannot, we will defend the State of Israel and Israel’s borders at all costs,” he said.
After more than a year of war in the Middle East, Israel has its hands full.
But developments in its northern neighbor, Syria, will be a source of real concern.
The Israel Defense Forces have dispatched reinforcements to the occupied Golan.
Under normal circumstances, it warned residents of several villages to stay home, as Israel would not hesitate to take action if it deemed it necessary, which would be seen as sufficiently provocative to trigger war.
Israel is particularly concerned about who might gain access to Bashar Assad’s alleged chemical weapons arsenal.
The leader of the Syrian rebellion is Abu Muhammad al-Jalani. His family roots are in the occupied Golan Heights, where thousands of Israeli settlers now live alongside some 20,000 Syrians, mostly Druze who stayed after the occupation.
Israel has no intention of giving up this land and is determined to protect its citizens.
During the 2011 Syrian uprising, Israel considered Assad, despite being an ally of Iran and Hezbollah, to be better than his regime’s followers.
Israel will now try to calculate what will happen next in Syria. Like everyone, it can only guess.
