Fears that Israel is engaging in an open-ended new occupation of Syrian territory
Israel struck dozens of sites in Syria overnight with airstrikes, despite the Syrian rebel leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, saying his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group was not interested in conflict with Israel.
The latest airstrikes follow a statement by Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, that Israeli troops, who seized the Golan Heights buffer zone with Syria last week, would remain for the winter on Mount Hermon in positions they occupied last week.
Katz’s office said in a statement that “due to what is happening in Syria, there is enormous security importance to our holding on to the peak”.
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, a nom de guerre used by Ahmed al-Sharaa, told Syrian state media: “There are no excuses for any foreign intervention in Syria now after the Iranians have left. We are not in the process of engaging in a conflict with Israel.”
Jolani said Israel was using false pretexts to justify its attacks on Syria, but that he was not interested in engaging in new conflicts as the country focused on rebuilding after the end of Bashar al-Assad’s reign.
He added that “diplomatic solutions” were the only way to ensure stability rather than “ill-considered military adventures”.
“Israeli arguments have become weak and no longer justify their recent violations. The Israelis have clearly crossed the lines of engagement in Syria, which poses a threat of unwarranted escalation in the region,” Jolani said.
“Syria’s war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations. The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction.”
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Israel fired 61 missiles at Syrian military sites in less than five hours on Saturday evening.
Israeli air raids hit bases, heavy weapons, sites associated with the former Assad regime’s missile and chemical weapons programme, and destroyed Syria’s small naval force in port of Latakia.
The continuing strikes have prompted mounting concern among diplomats and international officials concerned over what they fear may be an open-ended new occupation of Syrian territory. [Continue reading…]
The battle plans had been drawn up years ago, and when the Syrian state fell suddenly, Israel wasted no time putting them in motion.
The hundreds of strikes Israel carried out across Syria this week constituted one of the largest single operations in its history, experts said — effectively destroying its neighbor’s military capabilities in a matter of days. In parallel, Israeli forces have seized military posts in southern Syria, beyond a U.N.-monitored buffer zone established after the 1973 Yom Kippur war.
The goal, said Avi Dichter, an Israeli minister and member of the security cabinet, “is to establish facts on the ground,” even as the ground shifts rapidly, with Syrian rebels seeking to cement their rule over the fractured country after nearly 14 years of civil war.
Israel, like much of the world, was shocked by how rapidly the armed Islamist rebels moved through Syria, according to Dichter, and at how little resistance they encountered from Bashar al-Assad’s army. As the triumphant fighters arrived in Damascus on Sunday, raising their revolutionary flag over state buildings and promising a fresh beginning after more than 50 years of dynastic rule, Israeli leaders saw a chance to impose their own new reality.
“In Hebrew, we call it the plan in the drawer,” said Miri Eisin, a former senior intelligence officer in the Israeli military who has been briefed on security deliberations. For many years, she said, Israeli intelligence had catalogued the movement of Syrian forces, Iranian personnel and Hezbollah fighters.
By the time Iranian military advisers and allied forces withdrew in the face of the rebel advance, and Assad fled to Russia, “we had all the targets, all the information,” Eisin said, describing Israel Defense Forces maps annotated with suspected chemical and biological weapons facilities, armored divisions and airfields. [Continue reading…]