Israeli forces will stay in Syrian territory they seized following the toppling of Bashar Assad’s government until the establishment of “an effective force” that meets Israel’s security demands, the Israeli government said Thursday.
“The collapse of the Syrian regime created a vacuum on Israel’s border and in the buffer zone,” said Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, in a statement. “Israel will not permit jihadi groups to fill that vacuum and threaten Israeli communities.”
Netanyahu said that Israeli soldiers would only deploy in Syrian territory “temporarily.” But he did not provide any clear timeline for when they might leave and gave little indication it would be soon.
Any deal between Israel and the Islamist rebels who led the offensive against Assad appears distant given their mutual animosity. On Monday, Gideon Saar, the Israeli foreign minister, said Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — the most dominant faction — was motivated by “an extreme ideology of radical Islam.”
In the wake of Assad’s fall, Israeli fighter jets conducted more than 350 strikes across Syria, targeting the remnants of Assad’s navy, as well as chemical weapons and long-range missile caches that Israel feared would fall into the rebels’ hands.
Israel has carved out what it characterizes as a defensive perimeter inside Syria, in the widest-ranging overt operation its ground forces have conducted in the country in decades.
The Israeli military has mostly deployed in a 155-square-mile zone that was intended to be a demilitarized area monitored by United Nations peacekeepers. But soldiers have also taken up positions beyond the zone, deeper inside Syrian territory, according to Israeli officials and the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
Israel captured most of the Golan Heights in 1967, during the Six-Day War, and later annexed the territory. Most of the international community still considers the area to be part of Syria, although then-President Donald Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty there in 2019.
Since a cease-fire in 1974 after the Yom Kippur war, Israeli and Syrian forces have been deployed along lines that served as the de facto border between the two countries. UN peacekeepers belonging to the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force — or UNDOF — patrolled the buffer zone in between.
The sudden collapse of Assad’s decades-long rule on Sunday upended that arrangement. Israeli officials said they feared that armed militants would take advantage of the situation to launch a surprise attack on Israeli civilians, and they swiftly sent forces across the armistice lines.
At least one UN post in the buffer zone was also stormed by “unidentified armed individuals” over the weekend, according to the UN agency for peacekeeping. The position was ransacked by people who looted weapons and other items, according to a UN official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. The equipment was returned after the intervention of local leaders and UN officials, the official said.
Israel’s allies have mostly stayed quiet on the capture of territory in the buffer zone, although France called on Wednesday for Israel to withdraw and respect Syria’s sovereignty.
Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said Thursday that Israel’s move came in response to an imminent threat after the collapse of the Assad government.
Responding to the threat was “logical and consistent” with Israel’s right to self-defense from Washington’s perspective, Sullivan told reporters after a meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem. He declined to put a time frame on how long Israel’s presence would be acceptable.
“We will develop an elaborate perspective on the best way forward in a coordinated way,” Sullivan said.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military took a group of Israeli reporters on a guided tour in the area of Kodana, a Syrian village on the other side of the buffer zone. Video from the excursion — including of what were said to be deserted Syrian military fortifications — was later broadcast on several Israeli networks.
“It’s clear that we will remain here for quite some time,” Benny Kata, one of the local military commanders, said in an interview with Israel’s public broadcaster. “We’re prepared for this.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.