Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on 26 August that Tel Aviv will not withdraw from Syria, vowing that the army will “remain on Mount Hermon” and other newly occupied parts of the country.
“The Israeli army will remain on Mount Hermon and in the security zone necessary to protect the Golan Heights and Galilee communities from threats emanating from the Syrian side, as a main lesson from the events of 7 October,” Katz said.
He added that Israel “will also continue to protect the Druze in Syria.”
The defense minister’s remarks came as Israel continued to expand its occupation of Syria with raids, incursions, and land seizures.
Israeli troops launched an incursion into the village of Taranja in the northern Quneitra countryside in southern Syria on 26 August.
One civilian was killed during the Israeli incursion. A day earlier, on Monday morning, Israeli troops pushed into the Damascus countryside, seizing control of Tal Bat al-Warda and storming the village of Beit Jann, where they opened fire on civilians and sparked panic among residents.
Israel expanded its occupation of Mount Hermon following the fall of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government last year, pushing past the demilitarized zone and declaring the 1974 Disengagement Agreement null.
Israeli forces have since established a widespread occupation across southern Syria and have continued to expand it, practically encircling the Syrian capital.
Last month, Israel intervened in violent clashes between Syrian government-linked forces and Druze armed factions in the southern Suwayda governorate, carrying out heavy strikes on Damascus’s troops and sites in the country’s capital.
Tel Aviv framed the attacks as an effort to “protect” the Druze minority in Syria. Negotiations between Israel and Syria, which had been ongoing before the July clashes, resumed quickly following the Israeli strikes on the country.
Israel’s Channel 12 revealed on 25 August that “Israel and Syria are expected to sign a security agreement aimed at stabilizing the situation in Syria and preventing threats to Israel.”
The deal, reportedly set to be signed in September, is said to include a “demilitarization of the Golan Heights, preventing the reconstruction of the Syrian army, and establishing a humanitarian corridor to Mountain of the Druze (Jabal al-Druze).”
Last week, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer met with Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani in Paris.
The meeting focused on “preventing” Hezbollah or Iran from establishing a presence in southern Syria, Haaretz newspaper reported on 21 August.