IDF deploys in Golan buffer zone with Syria, girding for post-Assad regime chaos

The Israeli military said Sunday that it had taken up new positions in a buffer zone between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights as it prepared for potential chaos following the lightning-fast fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

While the Israel Defense Forces was increasing its presence in the areas as a precaution, and said it was on high alert, there were no major changes to guidelines for residents of the Golan Heights.

“The IDF has deployed troops in the buffer zone and in a number of areas that are necessary to defend, in order to ensure the security of the communities in the Golan Heights and the citizens of Israel,” the military said in a statement.

Syrian media reports said Israel had launched artillery shelling in the area.

The latest moves come following a fresh assessment and “the possibility of gunmen entering the buffer zone,” the IDF said. “We emphasize that the IDF does not intervene in the events taking place in Syria.”

It marked the first time since the 1974 Agreement on Disengagement was signed that Israeli forces have taken up positions inside the buffer zone between Israel and Syria. The IDF has entered the zone briefly on several occasions in the past.

The disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria concluded the Yom Kippur War.

The IDF said its deployment of troops to the buffer zone was a temporary measure, but it could end up staying there for a long time depending on the developments. The military said it would remain there until things were clear in Syria.

The deployment was carried out in coordination with the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which is tasked with the buffer zone. UNDOF members were, as of Sunday morning, staying in their positions.

Israel had sent warnings to the rebel forces in southern Syria not to approach the buffer zone.

On Saturday, the IDF intervened with artillery shelling to repel gunmen who tried to attack a UNDOF post near the Syrian village of Hader, close to the border. Rebel forces announced they had taken the border regions of Quneitra and Daraa earlier in the day.

Also on Sunday morning, the IDF’s 98th Division with the Paratroopers and Commando brigades was dispatched to the Golan Heights, bolstering its already shored-up forces in the area.

The IDF also imposed closed military zones in the Golan Heights on the Israeli side of the border with Syria.

The military said agricultural areas near Merom Golan, Ein Zivan, Buq’ata and Khirbet Ein Hura would be off-limits for civilians until the end of the month.

Farmers would be allowed to enter some areas within the closed zones “for periods of a few hours, based on military necessity” and in coordination with the IDF.

Meanwhile, the IDF Home Front Command ruled that schools in the four Druze communities in the northern Golan Heights — Buq’ata, Ein Qiniye, Mas’ade and Majdal Shams — would carry out studies online on Sunday. Daycares would still operate as usual in those towns.

There were no other changes to guidelines for civilians in the north.

The IDF said it was following the developments in Syria, bolstering its defenses, but not getting involved in the internal affairs of the country.

As the regime collapsed overnight, Israel launched airstrikes in Syria, hitting weapons factories, including chemical weapons sites near Damascus, apparently to prevent them from falling into the hands of rebel groups, according to Syrian media reports.

Additionally, Israel hit a Hezbollah convoy as the terror group withdrew from the Syrian city of Qusayr along the border with Lebanon shortly before rebel forces seized it, Syrian army sources told Reuters.

They told Reuters that at least 150 armored vehicles carrying hundreds of fighters left the city in phases. Qusayr has long been a major supply route for the terror group’s arms transfers and flow of fighters in and out of Syria since Hezbollah seized it in 2013 during the early phase of the civil war.

Israel has repeatedly hit Hezbollah weapons depots and underground fortifications it had built in the city.

The military said it was tracking weapons in Syria and working to prevent them from reaching Hezbollah or any other elements that could threaten Israel.

Hezbollah, its patron Iran and its ally Russia all backed the Assad regime. Syria serves as a thruway for Iran to send its weapons to its proxy terror group.

Syrian state television aired a video statement Sunday morning by a group of men saying that Assad had been overthrown and all detainees in jails had been set free. Assad’s whereabouts are currently unknown, but reports said he had fled the country.

The shock offensive by rebels led by the Islamist faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) began on November 27, during which gunmen captured the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, and the central city of Hama, the country’s fourth-largest city.

Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli of the ruling Likud party advocated for even further action against Syria Sunday, writing on X that Israel should completely take over the buffer zone with Syria that was established in 1974, warning of the ramifications of the fall of the Assad regime.

“The events in Syria are far from being a reason for celebration,” Chikli wrote, arguing that the Islamist rebel forces have been rebranded and that, the “bottom line is that most of Syria is now controlled by subsidiaries of al-Qaeda and ISIS.”

The good news, he contended, is “the strengthening of the Kurds and the expansion of their rule in the country’s northeast (Deir Ezzor region).”

He asserted that “Israel should renew its control of the peak of the Hermon and establish a new defensive frontier based on the 1974 disengagement line — we must not let jihadists entrench themselves near our communities.”

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said it is “more important than ever to create a strong regional coalition, with Saudi Arabia and the Abraham Accords countries, to deal together with the regional instability.”

The countries that signed the Abraham Accords normalization deal with Israel in 2020 are the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.

Lapid said that “the Iranian axis has been significantly weakened, and Israel should strive for a comprehensive diplomatic achievement” that will also help it deal with challenges in Gaza and the West Bank.

The Islamist Ra’am party and the affiliated Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement issued a statement welcoming the collapse of Assad’s “dictatorial regime,” framing it as “a historic turning point in the Syrian people’s journey.”

The statement said the Syrian nation has made immense sacrifices to restore its honor after living “for decades under a tyrannical regime that served as a tool for persecution, killing, deportation and violation of rights.”

Ra’am added that the developments are a ray of hope for millions of Syrian refugees worldwide to return to their homeland and help “build a new Syria that will highlight the values of liberty and human respect.”