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Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israeli forces will remain in a buffer zone on the Syrian border, and specifically on the summit of Mount Hermon, “until another arrangement is found that will ensure Israel’s security.”
Netanyahu made the comments from the mountain's summit — the highest peak in the area — which is inside Syria, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border with the Israel-held Golan Heights.
This was apparently the first time a sitting Israeli leader had set foot this far into Syria. Netanyahu said, "I had been on the summit of Mount Hermon 53 years ago as a soldier, but the summit's importance to Israel's security has only increased given recent events."
Israel seized a swath of southern Syria along the border with the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights in the days after Syrian President Bashar Assad was ousted by rebels.
Israel's capture of the buffer zone, a roughly 400-square-kilometer (155-square-mile) demilitarized area in Syrian territory, has sparked criticism, with some people accusing Israel of breaking the 1974 ceasefire agreement and maybe taking advantage of the chaos in Syria after Assad's removal to expand territory.
Netanyahu traveled to the buffer zone with Defense Minister Israel Katz, who said he had instructed the Israeli military to quickly establish a presence with fortifications, expecting a possibly long-term stay in the area.
"The summit of the Hermon is the eyes of the state of Israel to identify our enemies who are nearby and far away," Katz said.
An Israeli military official, speaking anonymously as per military protocol, confirmed there are no plans to move out the Syrians living in villages within the buffer zone.
The buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights was created by the U.N. following the 1973 Mideast war, with around 1,100 U.N. troops patrolling the area since.
A U.N. spokesman remarked on Tuesday that the advance of Israeli troops, no matter the duration, violates the 1974 agreement that established the buffer zone.
"That agreement needs to be respected, and occupation is occupation, whether it lasts a week, a month or a year, it remains occupation," said spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
There was no immediate response from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the group that overthrew Assad, or from Arab countries.
Israel still holds the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed — a move not recognized by most countries. Mount Hermon's peak is shared among the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, Lebanon, and Syria. Only the United States recognizes Israel's control over the Golan Heights.
With Assad gone, more than 30 bodies of Syrians who disappeared during his rule were discovered in a mass grave on Monday in Izraa, north of Daraa. Forensic teams and rebels worked together to find these remains, with families watching, hoping to find their missing loved ones.
"But we didn't find anyone and it broke our hearts. They were burned alive here after being doused in fuel," said Mohammad Ghazaleh, who was at the site.
Some of the bodies indicated they were shot or burned, according to Moussa Al-Zouebi, head of Izraa's health directorate.
Syria's new government has set up a hotline for families to report missing people or secret detention sites.
In Damascus, Qatar reopened its embassy on Tuesday, after nearly 13 years of severed ties with Assad's government, stating its "categorical rejection of the regime's repressive policies against the Syrian people."
Most embassies in Syria closed after the civil war started in 2011. The French Embassy in Damascus raised its flag on Tuesday as a "symbolic gesture" to support the Syrian people during the transition, with no confirmed date for full reopening due to ongoing assessments of the situation.
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