Israel’s prime minister has introduced its navy has briefly seized management of a demilitarized buffer zone within the Golan Heights, saying the 1974 disengagement settlement with Syria had “collapsed” with the insurgent takeover of the nation.
Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned he had ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to enter the buffer zone and “commanding positions close by” from the Israeli-occupied a part of the Golan.
“We won’t enable any hostile pressure to ascertain itself on our border,” he mentioned.
A UK-based battle monitor mentioned Syrian troops had left their positions in Quneitra province, a part of which lies contained in the buffer zone, on Saturday.
On Sunday, the IDF instructed residents of 5 Syrian villages contained in the zone to remain of their properties till additional discover.
The Golan Heights is a rocky plateau about 60km (40 miles) south-west of Damascus.
Israel seized the Golan from Syria within the closing phases of the 1967 Six-Day War and unilaterally annexed it in 1981. The transfer was not recognised internationally, though the US did so unilaterally in 2019.
The Israeli transfer within the buffer zone got here after Syrian insurgent fighters captured the capital, Damascus, and toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime. He and his father had been in energy within the nation since 1971.
Forces led by the Islamist opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered Damascus within the early hours of Sunday morning, earlier than showing on state tv to declare Syria to now be “free”.
Netanyahu mentioned the collapse of the Assad regime was a “historic day within the Middle East”.
“The collapse of the Assad regime, the tyranny in Damascus, affords nice alternative but additionally is fraught with important risks,” he mentioned.
He mentioned occasions in Syria had been the results of Israeli strikes towards Iran and the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Assad’s allies, and insisted Israel would “ship a hand of peace” to Syrians who wished to reside in peace with Israel.
The IDF seizure of Syrian positions within the buffer zone was a “non permanent defensive place till an acceptable association is discovered”, he mentioned.
“If we will set up neighbourly relations and peaceable relations with the brand new forces rising in Syria, that is our need. But if we don’t, we are going to do no matter it takes to defend the State of Israel and the border of Israel,” he mentioned.
After greater than a 12 months of battle within the Middle East, Israel already has its palms full.
But the tempo of occasions in Syria, it is northern neighbour, will likely be of actual concern.
The IDF had already moved reinforcements to the occupied Golan.
In regular instances, its warning to residents in a number of villages to remain of their properties as a result of Israel wouldn’t hesitate to behave if it felt it wanted to can be seen as vastly provocative and sufficient to start out a battle.
Israel is very involved about who may get their palms on Bashar al-Assad’s alleged arsenal of chemical weapons.
The chief of the Syrian insurrection is Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani. His household roots are within the occupied Golan Heights, the place hundreds of Israeli settlers now reside alongside about 20,000 Syrians, most of them Druze, who stayed on after it was captured.
Israel may have no intention of giving that wind up and is set to guard its residents.
During the 2011 Syrian rebellion, Israel made the calculation that Assad, regardless of being an ally of each Iran and Hezbollah, was a greater wager than what may observe his regime.
Israel will now be attempting to calculate what comes subsequent in Syria. Like everybody, it could possibly solely guess.
