Israel seizes Golan buffer zone after Syrian troops leave positions
Israel’s Prime Minister has announced that the military has temporarily taken control of a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights, stating that the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria has “collapsed” following the rebel takeover of the country.
Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that he had directed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to enter the buffer zone and secure “commanding positions nearby” from the Israeli-controlled part of the Golan Heights.
“We will not permit any hostile force to establish a presence along our border,” he declared.
According to a UK-based war monitor, Syrian troops vacated their positions in Quneitra province, part of which lies within the buffer zone, on Saturday. On Sunday, the IDF instructed residents of five Syrian villages in the zone to remain indoors until further notice.
The Golan Heights, a rocky plateau approximately 60km (40 miles) southwest of Damascus, was captured by Israel from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and unilaterally annexed in 1981. While the annexation has not been recognized internationally, the United States unilaterally acknowledged it in 2019.
The Israeli military’s action in the buffer zone followed the capture of Damascus and the ousting of Bashar al-Assad’s regime by Syrian rebel forces. Assad and his father had ruled the country since 1971.
Forces led by the Islamist opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered Damascus early on Sunday and appeared on state television to declare Syria “free.”
Netanyahu described the fall of the Assad regime as a “historic day in the Middle East.”
“The collapse of the Assad regime, the tyranny in Damascus, offers great opportunity but also is fraught with significant dangers,” he said.
He said events in Syria had been the result of Israeli strikes against Iran and the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Assad’s allies, and insisted Israel would “send a hand of peace” to Syrians who wanted to live in peace with Israel.
The IDF seizure of Syrian positions in the buffer zone was a “temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found”, he said.
“If we can establish neighbourly relations and peaceful relations with the new forces emerging in Syria, that’s our desire. But if we do not, we will do whatever it takes to defend the State of Israel and the border of Israel,” he said.
After more than a year of war in the Middle East, Israel already has its hands full.
But the pace of events in Syria, it’s northern neighbour, will be of real concern.
The IDF had already moved reinforcements to the occupied Golan.
In normal times, its warning to residents in several villages to stay in their homes because Israel would not hesitate to act if it felt it needed to would be seen as hugely provocative and enough to start a war.
Israel is especially concerned about who might get their hands on Bashar al-Assad’s alleged arsenal of chemical weapons.
The leader of the Syrian rebellion is Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani. His family roots are in the occupied Golan Heights, where thousands of Israeli settlers now live alongside about 20,000 Syrians, most of them Druze, who stayed on after it was captured.
Israel will have no intention of giving that land up and is determined to protect its citizens.
During the 2011 Syrian uprising, Israel made the calculation that Assad, despite being an ally of both Iran and Hezbollah, was a better bet than what might follow his regime.
Israel will now be trying to calculate what comes next in Syria. Like everyone, it can only guess.
