It had been fifty years since Israeli tanks had been seen in this part of the Golan Heights. Since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria on the night of December 7 to 8, the army of the Jewish state has crossed the border, penetrating and even surpassing the buffer zone established by the two countries. Enough to reinforce concerns in a strategic and unstable area for decades. If Israel first mentioned an operation “limited and temporary”his Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, asked the army, Friday, December 13, to “prepare to stay” all winter.
As early as December 7, even before Bashar al-Assad fled, Israeli forces had crossed the separation line between the two countries, at the Druze town of Majdal Shams, in the northeast of the occupied Golan Heights. by Israel. The order was given by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “take control” from the area on the other side of the barbed wire, to “defend and ensure the security of the Golan Heights communities and Israeli citizens”, after the departure of the regular Syrian army.
Faced with Syrian instability and the growing influence of the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the objective for Israel is to prevent the installation of any “force hostile” near its borders. “We do not intend to interfere in Syria's internal affairs”promised the Israeli Prime Minister, quoted by the site Timesofisrael.com. And to explain that the IDF had bombed numerous Syrian military installations “so that they do not fall into the hands of jihadists”. Benjamin Netanyahu also drew a red line regarding military cooperation between the new Syrian leaders and Tehran. “If this regime allows Iran to establish itself again in Syria (…), we will respond with force and we will make it pay a heavy price”he warned.
The area into which the army entered had been held since 1974 by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDF). It is a strip of one to eight kilometers wide, extending along the 80 km which separate Israel from Syria, and sheltering a few villages. As early as December 8, Israeli soldiers of the 210th Division filmed themselves at the summit of Mount Hermon, peaking at 2,800 meters, in the north of the area, in the immediate vicinity of an UNDF position.
Since then, Israeli incursions have also been observed further south, around the towns of Kuneitra and Kwdana in particular. The army worked to reinforce defense installations, invested several abandoned Syrian positions, and got their hands on tanks and weapons stocks of Bashar al-Assad's soldiers, abandoned a few days earlier during their retirement. According to the American think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Israeli army “did not encounter resistance when it seized the Syrian positions”. It nevertheless announced, on December 8, that it had helped the UN force to repel an attack launched by unidentified armed individuals in the zone of separation.
As our map shows, Israeli soldiers also ventured a few hundred meters beyond the buffer zone. Several images, published by members of the army and geolocated by Internet users, show, for example, Israeli soldiers at the top of a hill, south of Kuneitra, with strategic visibility towards the east of the area.
This region is located exactly where the zones of influence of several Syrian groups meet. On December 7, this part of Daraa province in the east was taken by rebel forces (shown in orange on our map), according to the ISW, while HTS troops gradually took control of the surrounding area. from Damascus, just 35 km northeast of the buffer zone. More locally, residents of the Syrian town of Marbah, where Israel plans to intervene, recently demanded HTS intervention in the area against the IDF, according to the ISW.
Whatever their evolution, these incursions sign the end of the disengagement agreement concluded in 1974 between Israel and Syria. Benyamin Netanyahu, for his part, believes that this “collapsed” in fact, after the rebel offensive putting an end to half a century of unchallenged power of the Assad clan in Syria.
As for the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967, the Israeli Prime Minister affirmed that it now belonged to his country “for eternity”. He recalled Donald Trump's decision, in 2019, to recognize Israeli sovereignty over this plateau. A declaration going against several UN resolutions, for which this territory remains occupied, and its annexation by Israel illegal under international law.
Israel's intervention in the buffer zone has drawn widespread international criticism, notably from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. He called on December 12 “all parts” has “end the unauthorized presence in the area of separation and refrain from any action that would undermine the ceasefire and the stability of the Golan.” Like Jordan, a neighboring country, and Iran, Saudi Arabia condemned this operation, which according to it aims to “sabotage Syria’s chances of restoring its security, stability and territorial integrity”said the Saudi Foreign Ministry. On December 11, Paris also called on Israel to withdraw from the buffer zone.
The past year had already been punctuated by high tensions, with rocket attacks by Hezbollah on Majdal Shams in July, killing 12 children, and Israeli bombings on Syrian territory. Families are separated by the buffer zone, and the border remains closed. It is now the very existence of the Fnuod and the presence of its 1,200 members that is in question. To confirm the military incursions of his army, Benjamin Netanyahu published two press releases, reports the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The English version described these actions as “temporary”but not their Hebrew version. Neither mentioned UN forces.
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