UN charges that Israel violated ceasefire with Syria when it captured border zone

The United Nations claims that when Israeli troops captured a demilitarized buffer zone along the border with Syria earlier this month, they violated a 50-year-old ceasefire between the two countries.

“The presence of the Israel Defense Forces in the buffer zone is a violation of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric says. The agreement “needs to be respected, and occupation is occupation — whether it lasts a week, a month or a year, it remains occupation.”

Israel says its presence in the buffer zone is temporary and will last until the dust settles in Syria and a new leadership capable of guaranteeing the upholding of the 1974 agreement is fully put in place following the ouster of the Assad regime. It says the takeover was done to prevent jihadist actors from exploiting the current power vacuum to enter the buffer zone and threaten Israel.