Israeli soldiers stand on Mount Hermon, in Syria, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to retake a demilitarized zone.
CNN | Published December 14, 2024
Israel wasted no time after Bashar al-Assad’s fall to bomb all the Syrian military assets it wanted to keep out of the rebels’ hands – striking nearly 500 targets, destroying the navy, and taking out, it claims, 90% of Syria’s known surface-to-air missiles.
But it is Israel’s capture of Syria’s highest peak, the Mount Hermon summit, that may prove among the most lasting prizes – though officials have insisted that its occupation is temporary.
“This is the highest place in the region, looking upon Lebanon, upon Syria, Israel,” said Efraim Inbar, director of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS). “It’s strategically extremely important. There is no substitute for mountains.”
The summit of Mount Hermon lies in Syria, in a buffer zone that separated Israeli and Syrian forces for fifty years until last weekend, when Israeli troops took control of it. Until Sunday, the summit was demilitarized and patrolled by UN peacekeepers – their highest permanent position in the world.
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, on Friday ordered the military to prepare for the harsh conditions of winter deployment. “Due to developments in Syria, it is of immense security importance to maintain our control over the summit of Mount Hermon,” he said in a statement.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has advanced beyond the summit, as far as Beqaasem, about 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) from the Syrian capital, according to Voice of the Capital, a Syrian activist group. CNN could not independently confirm that claim. An Israeli military spokesperson this week denied that forces were “advancing toward” Damascus.
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SOURCE: www.cnn.com
RELATED: Israeli army prepares to stay on border peak of Mt Hermon for winter
Israeli forces operate in what it described as the Mount Hermon region
BBC NEWS | Published December 14, 2024
Israel’s defence minister has instructed troops to prepare to stay for winter on the peak of Mount Hermon, which sits on the border between Syria, Lebanon and a UN demilitarised buffer zone in the Golan Heights.
The announcement comes after Israel seized control of the zone on 8 December after the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Defence Minister Israel Katz’s office said in a statement that “due to what is happening in Syria, there is enormous security importance to our holding on to the peak”.
Katz posted a picture on X showing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu using binoculars with the words: “Overlooking the Syrian peak of Mount Hermon, which returned to Israeli control after 51 years.”
The UN has called on Israel to withdraw from the buffer zone, which sits between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
UN Secretary General António Guterres said in a statement that he was “deeply concerned by the recent and extensive violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
The UN has said Israel is in violation of a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that established the buffer zone.
Israel has said the 1974 disengagement agreement “collapsed” with the fall of the Syrian government.
The summit of Mt Hermon is on the Syria-Lebanon border. The UN base near the summit is within the buffer zone.
The Golan Heights is a plateau about 60km (40 miles) south-west of Damascus.
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SOURCE: www.bbc.com
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