Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz visited Mount Bental in the Golan Heights Sunday morning. It is an observation point facing the Syrian border.
Netanyahu referred to Assad’s downfall as “a historic day in the history of the Middle East. The collapse of the Assad regime, the tyrannical rule in Damascus, offers great opportunity but also is fraught with significant dangers. This collapse is the direct result of our forceful action against Hezbollah and Iran, Assad’s main supporters. It set off a chain reaction of all those who want to free themselves from this tyranny and its oppression.”
He added: “But it also means that we have to take action against possible threats. One of them is the collapse of the Separation of Forces Agreement from 1974 between Israel and Syria. This agreement held for 50 years. Last night, it collapsed. The Syrian army abandoned its positions. We gave the Israeli army the order to take over these positions to ensure that no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel. This is a temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found.”
With that said, Defense Minister Israel Katz has ordered the Israel Defense Forces to create a secure area free of “heavy strategic weapons and terror infrastructure” beyond the buffer zone with Syria, the Defense Ministry announced Monday.
Katz said he had instructed the IDF to establish full control over the demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights, which was established by the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Damascus and Jerusalem and ended the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
We are following the situation closely. This is a time of great opportunity as the Islamic Republic in Iran has been weakened severely by the loss of its Syrian ally. However, times of chaos can be fraught with danger. We are heartened by Israel’s moves to secure adequate buffer zones to protect herself from the Sunni rebel forces.