Israel Says Troops Will Remain on Mt. Hermon at Syrian Border Indefinitely

Israeli army humvees move in the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights, near the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights on Dec. 21, 2024. Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images

In talks with the head of a United Nations observer force, Syria’s new government urged for Israel’s withdrawal from Syrian territory, but Israel says it is staying indefinitely in at least one position.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said after visiting troops on top of Mt. Hermon on Jan. 28 that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had no intention of vacating it.

Katz said Israel will not allow hostile forces to establish themselves in south Syria.

Syria’s foreign and defense ministers, meeting with U.N. observer force head Jean-Pierre Lacroix on Jan. 29, told him Syria was ready to cooperate fully with the United Nations, Syrian state media said, according to The Times of Israel.

Lacroix was set to meet observers from the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which monitors compliance with the 1974 disengagement accord. The U.N. considers Israel’s occupation of the buffer zone with the developments in the region as a violation of the deal.

The rebel leader who led the overthrow of the Bashar Assad regime in December 2024, Ahmad al-Sharaa, was named interim president on Jan. 29.

Israel may face increased pressure to withdraw, security expert Carmit Valensi of the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, told the Jerusalem Post.

Israel had held the southern, lower part of the snow-capped Mt. Hermon mountain cluster since the Six-Day War in 1967, while Syria held the higher ground on the north side.

As the Assad government suddenly teetered and fell in early December, the IDF rushed to secure Syria’s military bases and equipment there and in a 155-square-mile buffer zone along the two countries’ border. The buffer zone, manned by U.N. peacekeepers, had remained stable, and the border generally quiet since the last war between the countries, the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Israel said its troops have taken positions inside the buffer zone, and some have ventured beyond it. At the time, it described the moves as temporary and limited to ensure Israel’s border security while Syria was in chaos. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there was “a vacuum on Israel’s border.”

The IDF also sought to destroy as much Syrian military hardware and as many bases as possible, conducting hundreds of airstrikes. This ensured they could not be turned against Israel by radical forces in the future, as happened with $80 billion in U.S. military equipment abandoned in Afghanistan by the Biden administration in 2021 and seized by the Taliban.

Mt. Hermon overlooks both the countryside south of Damascus and the Golan Heights, which Israel occupied in 1967. President Donald Trump recognized Israel’s annexation during his first term, but most nations and the U.N. have not. Israel’s half features not only military bases but also tourism sites such as a ski resort.

Katz, in December, told IDF troops to prepare to remain in the buffer zone throughout the winter.

Al-Sharaa, who leads the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist group, responded in December to Israel’s concerns, offering reassurances that the new government would not threaten Israel or allow Iran to reestablish itself in Syria.

Israeli strategic analysts, though, have said the jury is still out on whether al-Sharaa, a member of both ISIS and Al-Qaeda before adopting a more moderate posture a few years ago, will maintain that position or whether he will revert to the Islamist stance that had led Western powers to classify him as a terrorist.

The United States until last month had a $10 million bounty on al-Sharaa but canceled it last month after a U.S. delegation met with him in Damascus.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.