Israel has taken more Syrian territory, justifying the incursion as a temporary move to protect its citizens but drawing a furious reaction in the region.
Defence minister Israel Katz on Monday said the country’s military was continuing to seize “high ground” inside Syria after the toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on Sunday by a group led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
The movement of tanks and infantry, which extended into and beyond a previously demilitarised buffer zone, was condemned “in the strongest possible terms” by Egypt, which said it amounted to the “occupation of Syrian land” and a “severe breach” of a 1974 armistice deal.
Regional powers are scrambling to respond to the stunning 12-day offensive by HTS, once an affiliate of al-Qaeda, which led disparate rebel factions to overthrow the Assad dynasty on Sunday.
A wide swath of the Israel-Syria frontier had been governed by the 1974 armistice agreement, including a significant UN peacekeeping force to monitor the pact.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visiting the border region on Sunday, said the agreement had “collapsed” after Syrian army units abandoned their positions, with Israeli forces taking them over “to ensure no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel”.
But, in a statement on Monday, the Egyptian foreign ministry said Israel’s recent actions had “exploited the . . . vacuum in Syria in order to occupy more Syrian land and to impose new facts on the ground in contravention of international law”.
It called on the UN Security Council and international powers to take a “firm position” towards “Israeli attacks” on Syria.
Other countries — both supporters and opponents of the toppled Assad regime — have also expressed concern that its fall could lead to further instability in the region.
Be the first to reply to this general discussion.
Join in on more popular conversations.
