Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has ordered the country’s troops who reoccupied the buffer zone between Syria and Israel to dig in and prepare to stay there through the winter.
Katz’s order comes just days after insurgent forces in Syria seized control of Damascus and former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad fled the country. On Dec. 8, as Assad’s fall from power became apparent, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a 1974 deconfliction agreement between Israel and Syria to be void and ordered Israeli forces to establish a security zone in the buffer zone, including the strategically valuable high ground around Mount Hermon.
“Due to what is happening in Syria, there is enormous security importance to our holding on to the peak of Mount Hermon,” Katz’s office said in a Dec. 13 statement.
In his initial comments announcing the Israeli military mission, Netanyahu welcomed the collapse of the Assad government but said it was necessary to occupy the buffer zone to prevent any hostile presence from establishing itself on the border of Israeli territory during the power vacuum. Netanyahu said this would be a temporary move until a more suitable long-term arrangement could be found, but did not elaborate on the potential timeline of this operation.
Katz’s order for Israeli troops to dig in through the winter indicates the Israeli operations aren’t likely to end in a matter of days.
The buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli Golan Heights was created by the United Nations after the 1973 Mideast war, also known as the Yom Kippur War, when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel. A U.N. force of about 1,100 troops has patrolled the area since then.
The new Israel buffer zone inside Syria extends from Israel’s existing holdings in the Golan Heights. Control over the heights has been a point of contention for decades.
Israel first seized parts of the Golan Heights from Syria during fighting between the two countries in 1967. The U.N. Security Council subsequently passed a resolution, calling on Israel to return the heights to Syria, and for both countries to cease hostilities. Israel has instead maintained control over parts of the Golan Heights in the more than five decades since.
The 1974 deconfliction agreement Syria and Israel reached called for an end to direct hostilities between the two countries, but didn’t resolve the Golan Heights dispute.
In 1981, Israel declared the annexation of its Golan Heights holdings, but nearly the entire international community has withheld formal recognition of the move. The United States became the first country to formally endorse Israel’s claims over the disputed territory in 2019, during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term in office.
While Netanyahu declared the 1974 deconfliction agreement to be void, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has insisted otherwise. In a Dec. 12 statement, the U.N. chief called on Israel to continue to abide by the agreement, “including by ending all unauthorized presence in the area of separation and refraining from any action that would undermine the ceasefire and stability in Golan.”
Other countries, including France and the United Arab Emirates, have condemned Israel’s incursion.
Thus far, the United States has condoned the new Israeli operations in Syria. At a Dec. 9 press briefing, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Israel has a legitimate concern about terrorist groups embedding close to their borders. Miller reiterated that the Israeli operations in the buffer zone are to be temporary, and said the United States ultimately hopes to see the 1974 deconfliction agreement upheld.
