The Israeli prime minister has been condemned across the Arab world for sending troops into a demilitarized part of the Golan Heights
The Golan Heights, illegally occupied for decades by Israel, will “forever be an inseparable part” of the country, Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Monday. One day earlier, the Israeli prime minister ordered troops to advance into a buffer zone separating the region from Syria.
At a press conference on Monday night, Netanyahu declared that “today, everyone understands the great importance of our presence there on the Golan, and not on the foothills of the Golan,” a reference to Israel’s seizure of the territory from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War.
“The Golan Heights will forever be an inseparable part of the state of Israel,” he added.
Israel unilaterally annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, a claim considered illegal by all of the world except the US. Until Sunday, however, Israeli troops were not stationed along the border of the Golan Heights and Syria, thanks to a 1974 agreement under which the Israeli and Syrian governments agreed to establish a buffer zone on the Israeli side of the frontier where only UN peacekeepers could deploy.
Israel sent tanks and troops into this buffer zone on Sunday after opposition forces seized Damascus and Syria’s deposed president, Bashar al-Assad, fled to Russia seeking asylum. In a video statement from the region, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the 1974 agreement establishing the demilitarized strip had effectively “collapsed” once Syrian troops “abandoned their positions.”
Israeli forces moved beyond the buffer zone and into Syria proper on Monday, in an operation that Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said is intended to create a new “security area” that would be clear of “heavy strategic weapons and terrorist infrastructure.” Among the sites captured by Israeli forces was the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, where one of the opening battles of the 1973 Yom Kippur War was fought.
Around 20,000 Jewish settlers live in the Golan Heights, while the region is also home to around the same number of Syrian Druze. The 30 or so Jewish settlements in the area are considered illegal under international law.
Netanyahu described Israel’s advance into the buffer zone as “temporary.” However, several neighboring countries have accused Israel of taking advantage of the power vacuum in Damascus to orchestrate an illegal land grab.
In a statement on Monday, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry called the move “a dangerous development and a blatant attack on Syria's sovereignty and unity, as well as a flagrant violation of international law.” Egypt accused Israel of exploiting the fall of Assad “in order to occupy more Syrian land and to impose a new reality on the ground in contravention of international law.”
