Syria’s HTS demands Israel's withdrawal from occupied Golan Heights
Syria’s HTS administration has called for Israel’s withdrawal from the territory it occupied in the Golan Heights following President Bashar al-Assad’s fall in December.
The state media reported that concerns were conveyed during talks with UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix in the capital Damascus on Wednesday.
During Lacroix’s meeting with Syria’s new foreign and defense ministers, “it was confirmed that Syria is ready to fully cooperate with the UN,” Syria's official news agency, SANA said.
Syria is also ready to redeploy forces to the Golan in line with a 1974 agreement establishing a buffer zone “provided Israeli forces withdraw immediately,” the report added.
Israel sent troops into the demilitarized buffer zone on December 8, when the Assad government collapsed.
In December, Israeli minister for military affairs Israel Katz ordered the military to “prepare to remain” in the buffer zone throughout winter.
On Tuesday, he said troops would remain at the top of Mount Hermon, known as Jabal al-Shaykh in Arabic, and surrounding zones "indefinitely.”
Mount Hermon straddles Syria and Lebanon, overlooking the occupied Golan Heights.
Israel seized most of the mountainous plateau from Syria during the 1967 war. The United Nations considers Israel’s takeover of the buffer zone a violation of the 1974 disengagement accord.
During his visit, Lacroix was to meet peacekeepers from the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which monitors compliance with the deal.
Soon after the fall of the Assad government, the Israeli regime launched a series of airstrikes across Syria, targeting key locations including Damascus, Homs, Tartous, Latakia, and Palmyra.
The strikes were accompanied by ground incursions, as tanks and armored bulldozers penetrated Syrian territory, beyond the Golan Heights to Qatana, barely 30 kilometers from Damascus.
The HTS remained conspicuously silent on the unprecedented Israeli aggression, refusing to condemn the land theft, a move seen by regional experts as a sign of internal instability.
Despite Israeli airstrikes, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, the commander of the HTS, declared that Syria is “not ready for another war.” He refused to unequivocally condemn the Israeli regime.
Observers believe Israel capitalized on the power vacuum created by Assad’s departure to advance its territorial agenda, which aligns with the so-called “Greater Israel” project.
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