Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israeli forces would remain in a buffer zone along the Syrian border, seized after the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad, until another arrangement was made to “ensure Israel’s security”.
Netanyahu made the remarks from a summit on Mount Hermon, the region’s highest peak inside Syria, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.
This is the first time an Israeli leader has set foot so far into Syria. Netanyahu said that he went to the top of the same mountain as a soldier 53 years ago, but the importance of the summit for Israel’s security has increased with recent events.
Israel seized part of southern Syria along the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights after rebels ousted Assad last week.
After Israel occupied the buffer zone, a roughly 400-square-kilometer (155-square-mile) demilitarized zone of Syrian territory, critics accused Israel of violating the 1974 ceasefire and exploiting Syria’s chaos. Holding Assad’s ouster to make land
An Israeli Air Force Black Hawk helicopter flies over Mount Hermon, along the so-called Alpha Line that separates the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria, as seen from the town of Majdal Shams. (AP Photo)
“We will stay … until another arrangement is found that ensures Israel’s security,” said Netanyahu, who traveled to the buffer zone with Defense Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday.
Katz said he directed the Israeli military to immediately establish a presence, including a fort, in anticipation of what could be an extended stay in the area. “Hermon’s Peak is the eye of the State of Israel to recognize our enemies near and far,” he said.
An Israeli military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to comply with military regulations, said there were no plans to evacuate Syrians living in villages inside the buffer zone.
The buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-held Golan Heights was created by the United Nations after the 1973 Middle East war. Since then, around 1,100 UN troops have patrolled the area.
A UN spokesman said on Tuesday that the Israeli army’s advance, as long as it lasts, violates the agreement establishing a buffer zone.
That agreement needs to be respected, and an occupation is an occupation, whether it lasts a week, a month or a year, it remains an occupation,” said spokesman Stéphane Dujarric.
There was no immediate response from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group that ousted Assad, or Arab states.
Israel still controls the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria during the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed – a move not recognized by much of the international community. The summit of Mount Hermon is divided between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Lebanon and Syria. Only the United States recognizes Israel’s control of the Golan Heights.
With Assad gone, a top U.N. official said Tuesday that the rebel leaders who seized Syria had committed to an “ambitious scaling-up of humanitarian assistance” to the millions in desperate need of food and other aid.
The leader of the rebel HTS – Ahmed al-Shara, formerly known as Mohammed al-Golani – and the country’s acting prime minister Mohammed al-Bashir pledged to support the movement of aid from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and other neighboring countries. As long as humanitarian actions are necessary,” said Tom Fletcher.
Fletcher, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA, spoke via video link to members of the UN Security Council from Damascus.
Germany said on Tuesday that its diplomats had also met with rebel leaders to discuss Syria’s political transition and “our expectations regarding the protection of minorities and women’s rights”.
German officials, noting the insurgent group’s history of ties to al-Qaida, said they would measure the group and the new government’s actions based on it. The United States has previously said its officials are in direct contact with HTS rebels seeking to oust Assad.
Also on Tuesday, the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces proposed that the Kurdish-majority city of Kobani in northern Syria become a demilitarized zone and “redeploy security forces under US supervision and presence”.
Turkey, which backs Syrian rebels who ousted Assad, is also fighting the Syrian Kurdish militia, considering it a terrorist group allied with a Kurdish rebellion within its own borders.
Syrian Kurdish forces have been a key U.S. ally in the fight against the extremist Islamic State group.
In other developments, the bodies of more than 30 Syrians who disappeared under Assad’s regime were found in a mass grave on Monday. Forensic teams and rebels worked together to find the remains in Izra village, north of Darara city, as families of the missing accompanied them.
Relatives said they initially expected to find their loved ones in jail.
“But we didn’t find anyone and it broke our hearts. They were burnt alive here by pouring fuel on them,” said Mohammad Ghazaleh, who was waiting at the mass grave.
Some of the recovered bodies showed evidence of being shot in the head or burned, said Moussa al-Zuaibi, head of Izra’s health directorate.
New Syrian authorities have set up a hotline to report missing persons and secret detention sites.
In the Syrian capital of Damascus, Qatar officially reopened its embassy on Tuesday, nearly 13 years after severing diplomatic ties with the Assad government.
Qatar earlier in a statement reaffirmed its “unequivocal rejection of the regime’s repressive policies against the Syrian people”. Most foreign embassies have been closed in Syria since the civil war began in 2011.
The French embassy in Damascus raised the flag on Tuesday in a “symbolic gesture” to show support for the Syrian people during the transition. This reopening is pending an ongoing assessment of the political and security situation, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said.
The Turkish Embassy in Damascus also recently opened.
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