Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israeli forces will keep in a buffer zone on the Syrian border, and particularly on the summit of Mount Hermon, “till one other association is discovered that may guarantee Israel’s safety.”
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned Tuesday Israeli forces will keep in a buffer zone on the Syrian border, and particularly on the summit of Mount Hermon, “till one other association is discovered that may guarantee Israel’s safety.”
Netanyahu made the feedback Tuesday from the mountain’s snow-dusted summit — the very best peak within the space — which is positioned on Syria’s aspect of the border. This was apparently the primary time a sitting Israeli chief entered the Syrian territory.
Netanyahu mentioned he had been on the summit of Mount Hermon 53 years in the past as a soldier, however the summit’s significance to Israel’s safety has solely elevated given latest occasions.
Israel seized a swath of southern Syria alongside the border with the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, calling it a buffer zone, within the days after Syrian President Bashar Assad was ousted by rebels. Israel’s seize of the buffer zone has sparked condemnation, with critics accusing Israel of violating a 1974 ceasefire and probably exploiting the chaos in Syria for a land seize.
Netanyau visited the buffer zone with Protection Minister Israel Katz, who mentioned he instructed the Israeli army to rapidly set up a presence together with fortifications, in anticipation of what might be an prolonged keep within the space.
“The summit of the Hermon is the eyes of the state of Israel to determine our enemies who’re close by and much away,” Katz mentioned.
Israeli forces moved to manage a roughly 400-square-kilometer (155-square-mile) demilitarized buffer zone in Syrian territory. The buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights was created by the U.N. after the 1973 Mideast warfare. A U.N. pressure of about 1,100 troops had patrolled the world since then.
Israel nonetheless controls the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria through the 1967 Mideast warfare and later annexed — a transfer not acknowledged by a lot of the worldwide neighborhood. Mount Hermon’s summit is split between the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, Lebanon, and Syria. Solely america acknowledges Israel’s management of the Golan Heights.
