Israel captured the strategically important mountain, Syria\u2019s highest peak, following the fall of Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime to a rebel-led coalition earlier this month. Israeli officials including Netanyahu had initially characterized the advance as a temporary security measure. <\/p>\n
The source said Netanyahu\u2019s order was intended to keep forces in place long enough for the political-security situation in Syria to stabilize. He is also waiting, the source said, for clarity on whether Syria\u2019s new leaders intend to honor a 1974 agreement that created a buffer zone along the shared border, on which Mount Hermon\u2019s summit sits. Until the takeover, the summit was demilitarized and patrolled by UN peacekeepers \u2013 their highest permanent position in the world. <\/p>\n
Syria\u2019s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, accused Israel of crossing \u201cthe lines of engagement\u201d with its actions in Syria. Meanwhile, several Arab states have accused Israel of exploiting instability in Syria to execute a land grab and \u201coccupy more Syrian territories.\u201d <\/p>\n
Netanyahu however has doubled down on the security need for control of the area saying that \u201cIsrael will not permit jihadi groups to fill that vacuum and threaten Israeli communities\u201d in the occupied Golan Heights, an area in southwestern Syria that abuts Mount Hermon and which Israel captured and later annexed in 1981. <\/p>\n
Just this past Sunday, the Israeli government approved a plan by Netanyahu to expand settlements in the Golan Heights, according to a statement from the prime minister\u2019s office, saying that was \u201cout of a desire to double the population\u201d there. <\/p>\n
Mount Hermon is a strategic position that overlooks Lebanon, Syria and Israel. It\u2019s also just over 35 kilometers (about 22 miles) from Damascus, which means that control of its Syrian foothills \u2013 also currently in the hands of Israeli troops \u2013 put the Syrian capital within artillery range. <\/p>\n
Mostafa Salem and Nadeen Ebrahim contributed to this report.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Israel captured the strategically important mountain, Syria\u2019s highest peak, following the fall of Bashar al-Assad\u2019s regime to a rebel-led coalition earlier this month. Israeli officials including Netanyahu had initially characterized the advance as a temporary…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1687,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}