Israel ordered troops Friday to prepare to remain throughout winter on Mount Hermon — a strategic peak inside a buffer zone that has existed for decades with Syria but which Israeli forces have seized in the wake of the Assad regime’s collapse.
“Due to what is happening in Syria, there is a huge security importance to our holding of the Hermon peak and everything must be done to ensure the IDF’s preparations in the area, to allow the troops to stay there in the difficult weather conditions,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
Israel has said its deployment to the buffer zone was temporary and defensive, but concerns have grown over what United Nations chief António Guterres on Thursday called “extensive violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” as he urged Israeli forces to withdraw from the buffer zone.
He also expressed concern over hundreds of Israeli strikes on locations across Syria following the toppling of the Assad regime, which Israel has said are aimed at preventing the regime’s arsenal falling into the hands of militants.
On Friday, Katz shared a photo on X that he said showed him with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu overlooking the Syrian peak of Mount Hermon with binoculars, saying the site had “returned to Israeli control after 51 years.”
“An exciting historical moment,” he wrote.
Netanyahu’s office has said that the collapse of the Assad regime “created a vacuum on Israel’s border and in the buffer zone,” which was established as part of a ceasefire between the countries following the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
“Israel will not permit jihadi groups to fill that vacuum and threaten Israeli communities on the Golan Heights with October 7th style attacks,” his office said.
Israel occupied and later annexed the Golan Heights after the 1967 Mideast war, a move not recognized by most of the international community.
At over 9,000 feet, Mount Hermon stands as the highest peak in the eastern Mediterranean coast. Israel has drawn swift backlash over its seizure of the area in the past week, with critics accusing the country of exploiting the evolving situation in Syria in pursuit of a land grab.
In Syria, crowds gathered across the country on Friday for mass rallies celebrating President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster after worshippers gathered for the first Friday prayers since his family’s 50 years of brutal rule was brought to an end in a stunning advance by rebel forces.
Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of the main rebel group that ousted Assad, called on Syrians in a video message to “take to the squares to celebrate the victory.”
But he urged revelers to celebrate without firing bullets or causing a commotion “so that we can then move on to building this country.”
