The Israeli government has approved a plan to encourage the expansion of settlements in the occupied Golan Heights.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the move was necessary because a “new front” had opened up for the Islamist-led rebel coalition after the fall of the Assad regime along Israel’s border with Syria.
Netanyahu has said he wants to double the population of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured during the 1967 Six-Day War and is considered an illegal occupation under international law.
Israeli forces moved into the buffer zone separating the Golan Heights from Syria in the days following Assad’s departure, saying the change of control in Damascus meant that ceasefire arrangements had “disintegrated”.
Despite the move, Netanyahu said in a statement Sunday evening that Israel “has no interest in conflict with Syria.”
He said that we will determine the Israeli policy regarding Syria according to the ground reality.
There are more than 30 Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights, home to an estimated 20,000 people. They are considered illegal under international law, which Israel disputes.
The settlers live with about 20,000 Syrians, most of whom are Druze Arabs who did not flee when the area came under Israeli control.
Netanyahu said Israel “will stick to it. [the territory]to flourish and populate it”.
However, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he “sees no reason” for the country to expand into the Golan Heights.
“Prime Minister [Netanyahu] “We are not interested in escalating the confrontation with Syria and we hope that we will not have to fight against the new rebels who are currently occupying Syria,” he said. So why do we do the exact opposite?” he told the BBC World Service’s News Hour programme.
He added: “We have a lot of problems to deal with.”
Netanyahu’s announcement came a day after Syria’s new de facto leader, Ahmed al-Harara, criticized Israel for its ongoing attacks on military targets in the country, which have reportedly targeted military installations.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has documented more than 450 Israeli airstrikes in Syria since December 8, including 75 since Saturday evening.
Al-Shara – also known as Abu Muhammad al-Jolani – said the attacks “crossed red lines” and risked escalating tensions in the region, although he said Syria did not want a conflict with a neighboring state. .
Speaking to Syrian TV, which has been seen as a supporter of the opposition during the civil war, Al-Shara said the country’s “state of war, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for a new conflict”.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not commented on his remarks, but previously said the strikes were necessary to prevent weapons from falling into the “hands of extremists”.
President Bashar al-Assad and his family fled to Russia and took refuge after the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led other rebel factions in a lightning attack on Damascus.
These groups continue to form a transitional government in Syria, of which al-Sharh is the ideological head.
On Saturday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blanken said Washington was in direct contact with HTS.Which the United States and other Western governments still consider a terrorist organization.
UN Syria envoy Geir Pedersen said on Sunday that he hopes for an immediate lifting of sanctions on the country to help economic recovery.
“We hope to see the lifting of sanctions soon so that we can really see rallies around building Syria,” Pedersen said as he arrived in Damascus to meet with Syria’s caretaker government and other officials.
Elsewhere, Turkish Defense Minister Yasser Guler said Ankara was ready to provide military support to the new Syrian government.
“It is important to see what the new administration will do. We think it is important to give them a chance,” Guler said of HTS, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency and other Turkish media.