Jerusalem: Israel\u2019s military chief Herzi Halevi has said that the country does not intend to intervene in Syria but remains focused on preventing \u201cterror elements\u201d from gaining a foothold in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.<\/p>\n
Halevi, who visited the Golan Heights for a situation assessment with senior military officials, was seen in video footage addressing commanders on Saturday.<\/p>\n
He said that Israel had been in the area for almost a week to \u201cdefend the border\u201d in the occupied Golan Heights and Mount Hermon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a hostile state here whose army has collapsed. There is a threat that terror elements may arrive here, and we have acted proactively to prevent them from settling,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Halevi reiterated that Israel is \u201cnot intervening in what is happening in Syria\u201d and has \u201cno intention of managing Syria\u201d.<\/p>\n
His remarks followed a statement from Ahmad al-Shara, leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, regarding the evolving Israel-Syria relationship following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad\u2019s government.<\/p>\n
Al-Shara, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Julani, said that they \u201chave no intention of entering into a conflict with it (Israel)\u201d.<\/p>\n
He further argued that Israel \u201cnow has no justification\u201d for continuing its strikes and interference in Syria.<\/p>\n
The comments come after Israel\u2019s seizure of the United Nations-monitored buffer zone, a demilitarised area between the two countries established in 1974.<\/p>\n
Israeli forces also took control of a Syrian army outpost and stationed troops on the summit of Mount Hermon, the highest point in the area. Israeli airstrikes have been targeting Syrian army assets across the country, according to Israeli officials.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s military actions have sparked condemnation from regional countries and prompted calls from the international community for respect for Syria\u2019s sovereignty.<\/p>\n
While Israel has maintained that the move into Syria is limited to the buffer zone and is not a permanent occupation, sources have been quoted as saying in Israeli media that the military may remain in the buffer zone for a long time which may extend to years.<\/p>\n
Following the 1967 Middle East War, Israel has already been in occupation of Golan Heights, which much of the international community considers Syrian territory unlawfully occupied by Israel.<\/p>\n
\u2013IANS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jerusalem: Israel\u2019s military chief Herzi Halevi has said that the country does not intend to intervene in Syria but remains focused on preventing \u201cterror elements\u201d from gaining a foothold in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. Halevi, who visited the Golan Heights for a situation assessment with senior military officials, was seen in video footage addressing commanders […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-52772","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/202310123068514-UMxd96.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52774,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52772\/revisions\/52774"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenftimes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}