Israeli forces will stay in Syrian territory they seized following the toppling of Bashar Assad’s govt until the establishment of “a new force” that meets Israel’s security demands, the Israeli govt said Thursday. “The collapse of the Syrian regime created a vacuum on Israel’s border and in the buffer zone,” said Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. “Israel will not permit jihadi groups to fill that vacuum and threaten Israeli communities.”
Netanyahu said that Israeli soldiers would only deploy in Syrian territory “temporarily.” But he did not provide any clear timeline for when they might leave and gave little indication it would be soon. Any deal between Israel and the Islamist rebels who led the offensive against Assad appears distant given their mutual animosity. On Monday, Gideon Saar, the Israeli foreign minister, said Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – the most dominant faction – was motivated by “an extreme ideology of radical Islam.”
In the wake of Assad’s fall, Israeli fighter jets conducted 350+ strikes across Syria, targeting the remnants of Assad’s navy, as well as chemical weapons and long-range missile caches that Israel feared would fall into the rebels’ hands.
Israel has carved out what it characterises as a defensive perimeter inside Syria, in the widest-ranging overt operation its ground forces have conducted in the country in decades. The Israeli military has mostly deployed in a 155-square-mile zone that was intended to be a demilitarised area monitored by UN peacekeepers. But soldiers have also taken up positions beyond the zone, deeper inside Syrian territory, according to Israeli officials and the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
Israel captured most of the Golan Heights in 1967, during the Six-Day War, and later annexed the territory. Most of the international community still considers the area to be part of Syria. Since a ceasefire in 1974, Israeli and Syrian forces have been deployed along lines that served as the de facto border between the two countries. UN peacekeepers patrolled the buffer zone in between. The sudden collapse of Assad’s rule on Sunday upended that arrangement. Israeli officials said they feared that armed militants would take advantage of the situation to launch a surprise attack on Israeli civilians, and they swiftly sent forces across the armistice lines.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military took a group of Israeli reporters on a guided tour in the area of Kodana, a Syrian village on the other side of the buffer zone. Video from the excursion was later broadcast on Israeli networks. “It’s clear that we will remain here for quite some time,” Benny Kata, one of the local military commanders, said in an interview with Israel’s public broadcaster.
Israel’s allies have mostly stayed quiet on Israel’s capture of territory. On Wednesday, France issued a rare call for Israel to withdraw and respect Syria’s sovereignty.
