Israel has launched hundreds of strikes across Syria following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime last December.
Six Syrian army officers have been killed in Israeli drone strikes south of Damascus, Syria’s state-run El Ekhbariya TV reported, a day after Syria condemned a new Israeli “military incursion” outside the capital.
Israeli drones targeted Syrian army positions in the Damascus countryside near the city of al-Kiswah, the broadcaster reported early on Wednesday.
Following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime last December, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes targeting military sites and assets across Syria.
Israel also expanded its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights by seizing the demilitarised buffer zone, a move that violated a 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria.
Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday that Israel had sent 60 soldiers to take control of an area inside the Syrian border around Mount Hermon, near a strategic hilltop that overlooks Beit Jinn, close to the border with Lebanon in southern Syria. Israel did not immediately comment on the accusation.
Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs Asaad al-Shaibani accused Israel of establishing intelligence facilities and military posts in demilitarised areas to advance its “expansionist and partition plans”.
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared his vision for a “Greater Israel“, a concept supported by ultranationalist Israelis that lays claim to the occupied West Bank, Gaza, and parts of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan.
A coalition of 31 Arab and Islamic countries and the Arab League said the stance was a “blatant and dangerous violation of the rules of international law and the foundations of stable international relations”.
The latest Israeli military action in Syria follows deadly clashes in the Druze-majority Syrian province of Suwayda, where a week of sectarian violence in July killed 1,400 people, before a ceasefire put an end to the bloodshed. Israel had carried out strikes on Syrian troops and bombed the heart of the capital, Damascus, under the pretext of protecting the Druze people.
