Netanyahu claims credit for starting ‘historic’ process that led to fall of Assad regime
IDF takes control of buffer zone along border, including Syrian side of Mount Hermon, said to bomb missile research facilities, and chemical weapons stores around Damascus
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday claimed credit for starting the chain of events that led to the sudden fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, hailing it as an “historic day,” as the military seized control of the buffer zone on the countries’ border.
“This is a historic day in the history of the Middle East,” Netanyahu said during a visit to Mount Bental on Israel’s border with Syria. “The Assad regime is a central link in Iran’s axis of evil — this regime has fallen. ”
“This is a direct result of the blows we have inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah, the main supporters of the Assad regime,” Netanyahu argued, referencing the 14 months of combat against Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies since October 7 of last year.
“This has created a chain reaction throughout the Middle East of all those who want to be free from this oppressive and tyrannical regime,” he added.
Netanyahu hearkened back to the “Good Neighbor” policy Israel pursued at the height of the Syrian civil war, when the country provided medical treatment to thousands of Syrians, and sent thousands of tons of humanitarian goods into the country. “Hundreds of Syrian children were born here in Israel,” he noted.
Netanyahu said that going forward Israel will pursue a similar policy of giving humanitarian aid to Syrian civilians while avoiding taking an active part in internal conflicts.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
"This is a historic day for the Middle East. The collapse of the Assad regime, the tyranny in Damascus, offers great opportunity but also is fraught with significant dangers. pic.twitter.com/wVKyO3vKMb
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) December 8, 2024
The prime minister also stressed that Israel is extending a hand in peace to Druze, Kurds, Christians and Muslims in Syria.
On Sunday, Netanyahu warned that while the fall of Assad brings new opportunities, it also carries new risks.
“We are acting first and foremost to protect our border,” the premier said. “This area has been controlled for nearly 50 years by a buffer zone agreed upon in 1974, the Separation of Forces Agreement. This agreement has collapsed, the Syrian soldiers have abandoned their positions.”
Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed the IDF to seize the buffer zone, he said, adding that Israel will not allow any hostile forces to set up on the border.
IDF deploys in buffer zone, takes control of Syrian side of Mount Hermon
The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday that it had deployed in the buffer zone, but has not commented on specific positions.
Included in movements in the zone, troops from the Israeli Air Force’s elite Shaldag Unit seized the Syrian side of Mount Hermon on Sunday, facing no resistance during the operation, the military said.
The IDF stressed that its deployment to the buffer zone between Israel and Syria was a defensive and temporary measure amid the chaos in the country following the fall of the Assad regime.
According to the military, troops were deployed to specific strategic positions in the buffer zone to prevent unidentified gunmen from being in the area.
Over the weekend, gunmen were seen in the buffer zone, including during an incident where a UN post came under attack.
The IDF fears that following the fall of the regime, and with an abundance of weapons in the area, hostile forces could attack Israel.
The military said the move to capture the buffer zone is purely to ensure that attacks aren’t carried out against Israel, and it will remain there until the situation is clear.
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 also issued an “urgent warning” to residents of several southern Syrian villages close to the Israeli border.
“The fighting in your area is forcing the IDF to act and we do not intend to harm you,” Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman said on X. “For your safety, you must stay at home and not go out until further notice.”
The warning is issued to residents of Ofaniya, Quneitra, al-Hamidiyah, Samdaniya al-Gharbiyya and al-Qahtaniyah, all close to the Israeli border.
Meanwhile, amid the chaos, the Israeli Air Force carried out numerous strikes in Syria on Sunday, taking out weaponry Israel fears could fall into the hands of hostile forces.
Israel strikes at numerous Syrian military targets
According to reports in Syria, strikes earlier Sunday targeted ammunition and weapons depots at the Khalkhalah airbase in Suwayda, several sites in the Daraa Governorate and the Mezzeh airbase in Damascus.
Later, additional strikes were reported at the Mezzeh airbase, a major security complex in the Kafr Sousa suburb of the capital, a branch of the Scientific Studies and Research Center in Damascus, and a central square in the capital that includes intelligence and customs headquarters.
Israel has previously said Iranian scientists were developing missiles at the Kafr Sousa complex.
Israel on Saturday also 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.
A severe blow to the Iranian axis of evil
Meanwhile, Israeli politicians hailed the possibilities for the region stemming from the fall of the Assad regime.
On a visit to Israel’s border with Syria, Defense Minister Israel Katz hailed developments as “a severe blow to the Iranian axis of evil.”
“The octopus tentacles are being cut off one by one,” he said, referring to Iran’s influence over the Middle East via proxy groups, which include Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Vowing that the communities in Israel’s Golan Heights will remain safe amid the developments across the border in Syria, Katz said Israel is “determined not to allow a return to the situation of October 6 – not in the Golan Heights or anywhere else.”
National Unity chairman Benny Gantz said Sunday that now is the “time to free Lebanon and Syria” from Iran, now that Tehran has been weakened over 14 months of war against it and its proxies.
Addressing reporters alongside regional council chairman Uri Kellner in the Golan Heights along the Syrian border, Gantz said that the fall of Assad’s regime marks a “strategic turning point in the entire Middle East.”
Israel has long prepared defensive infrastructure in the north against the Syrian military threat and now it needs to “strengthen the defense of the communities themselves and the buffer zone, and monitor developments,” Gantz said.
“But no less important than that, we need to look beyond Syria. Iran is no longer a reliable supporter [of regional proxies], Hezbollah has been severely damaged and [Iran’s] influence has been weakening both in Lebanon and in Syria. We need to continue the pressure on it, and [we need] local actors in both Syria and Lebanon to free themselves from the Iranian yoke,” continued Gantz, a former IDF chief of staff.
The general-turned-lawmaker added that “in the long term, it will be possible to expand the Abraham Accords to establish a buffer against Iran,” referring to the series of US-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several Arab countries, which efforts have long been underway to have Saudi Arabia join as well.
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid on Sunday 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.”
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.
However, he also cautioned that Israel must approach the “complex” situation in Syria “with care and responsibility,” and warned Israeli officials against “unnecessary statements that could push the new Syrian government onto a different path.”
He clarified that he supports the expansion of an Israeli buffer zone along the Syrian border “until the situation becomes clear.”
In a post on X, Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman harkened back to Israel’s strike destroying Syria’s nuclear reactor in 2007, asking followers what would have happened if Assad or the rebels possessed nuclear weapons today.
“Now Iran, which has been dealt a serious blow and withdrew from Syria, has increased the pace of its uranium enrichment and is getting closer to building a nuclear bomb. This is the time to stop the talk and act,” he wrote.
An American intelligence report issued Thursday said Iran, which has vowed to destroy Israel, has enough fissile material to make more than a dozen nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli of the ruling Likud party sounded a note of caution about the fall of Assad’s regime, writing on X that “the events in Syria are far from being a reason for celebration.”
The minister said that despite a “rebranding” by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebel group and its leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani “the bottom line is, 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).”
Chikli wrote that “Israel should renew its control of the peak of the Hermon and establish a new defensive frontier on the basis of the 1974 disengagement line,” echoing the same plans announced by the prime minister and military on Saturday.
“We must not let jihadists entrench themselves near our communities,” Chikli said.
Israel has been in direct conflict with Iran’s proxies since war erupted last year when Hamas-led terrorists rampaged across southern communities on October 7, 2023, slaughtering some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages to Gaza.
Israel’s subsequent ongoing campaign in Gaza has devastated the terror group.
Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, which fought for Assad during the Syrian civil war, also began launching cross-border attacks on Israel the day after the Hamas attack last year, firing rockets and drones at border communities and military posts, displacing some 60,000 Israelis from their homes in the country’s north.
After almost a year of daily skirmishes, Israel launched a new offensive against Hezbollah in September 2024, wiping out its senior leadership, and then launched a ground operation in October to drive the group north, away from the Israel-Lebanon border.
In November, a ceasefire was agreed to there, which has broadly held, despite some airstrikes by Israel against Hezbollah operatives amid alleged violations of the truce.
Israel has also directly engaged with Iran, the chief of the so-called Axis of Resistance against Israel, of which Assad’s regime was a part, providing a key thoroughfare for Iranian arms to Lebanon.
Iran has launched two ballistic missile attacks against the Jewish state since last April, after the second of which Israel carried out a wave of airstrikes that crippled the Islamic Republic’s air defense systems.
