Syria: Assad gone, Israel seizes Golan Heights buffer zone

Shortly after the demise of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s 24-year-long reign, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the Jewish nation had “temporarily seized” the control of a demilitarised buffer zone in the Golan Heights. Netanyahu said that with the end of the Assad regime, the 1974 disengagement agreement between Syria and Israel has “collapsed”.

In the span of just a few days, rebel groups infiltrated and took over multiple Syrian cities, including the country’s capital Damascus. Amid the chaos, Assad fled the country. While his whereabouts are still not clear, reports are emerging that Russia has granted asylum to Assad and his family on “humanitarian grounds”.

On Sunday, Netanyahu announced that he had ordered the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to enter the buffer zone and “commanding positions nearby” from the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan. “We will not allow any hostile force to establish itself on our border,” he averred. Meanwhile, a UK-based war monitor said that Syrian troops had left their positions in Quneitra province, part of which lies inside the buffer zone, on Saturday.

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IDF issues warning to residents

On Sunday, the IDF issued an advisory in which they asked the residents of five Syrian villages inside the zone to stay in their homes until further notice. The rocky plateau of Golan Heights has seen a lot of chaos and regime change over the years. Israel seized Golan from Syria in the closing stages of the Six-Day War in 1967. Tel Aviv eventually unilaterally annexed the territory in 1981.

However, the move was not recognised unilaterally. In the Sunday address, Netanyahu said that the collapse of the Assad regime was 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.

The Israeli premier mentioned that the events in Syria had been the result of Israeli strikes against Iran and the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Assad’s allies. He insisted that Tel Aviv would “send a hand of peace” to Syrians who want to live in peace with Israel.

Netanyahu made it clear that the IDF seizure of Syrian positions in the buffer zone was a “temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found.” “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 concluded.

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With inputs from agencies.