Israel takes more Syrian territory and hits chemical weapons sites

Israel has taken more Syrian territory and struck chemical weapons sites in reaction to the toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s regime by a throng led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

The moves arrive as regional powers scramble 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.

Defence minister Israel Katz on Monday said the country’s military was continuing to seize “high ground” inside Syria after tanks and infantry moved into a previously demilitarised buffer zone.

A wide swath of the Israel-Syria frontier had been governed by a 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 unfriendly force embeds itself correct next to the border of Israel”.

Katz on Monday said Israeli troops would make a “safety area” beyond the ancient buffer zone that would be tidy of “heavy strategic weapons and terrorist infrastructure”.

As part of the incursion, Israeli commandos on Sunday seized a strategic Syrian military position at the highest point on the Golan Heights, known as Jabal al-Shaykh.

Katz added that Israel would reach out to locals in the area, including the Syrian Druze throng, as well as continue strikes against Iranian operations to smuggle weapons to Lebanon-based Hizbollah.

The Israeli military has also been reinforcing its border defences and digging trenches to halt any motorised infiltration attempts, while making obvious that anyone who approaches Israeli positions would be fired on.

“Israel is seizing vantage points and deterring [the Syrian side] now,” said a person familiar with developments. “Israel doesn’t desire to intervene, but due to the proximity [of what’s happening across the border in Syria] this is an Israeli gain.”

Israel hit suspected chemical weapons sites in Syria with air strikes over the weekend, in a bid to ruin Assad regime capabilities before they fell into rebel hands, foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Monday.

Israeli warplanes have conducted numerous sorties against such “strategic weapons” since the rebel offensive in Syria began two weeks ago, said the person familiar with developments inside the country. Such capabilities “should not fall into the incorrect hands”, the person added.

On Monday, Katz directed the military to continue striking “throughout Syria” to ruin weaponry including “surface-to-air missiles, air defence systems, surface-to-surface missiles, cruise missiles, long-range rockets and land-to-sea missiles”.

Multiple air strikes were reported on Sunday and into Monday across the country, including on a safety complicated and air bases around Damascus, as well as the southern cities of Dara’a and Suweidah.

Commenting on the Israeli incursion into Syrian territory for the first period in over five decades, Netanyahu said: “This is a temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found.”