Angry Syrians take to streets after Israel says it won’t allow Syrian forces in occupied south

Thousands of people have staged rallies in Syria’s southwestern province of Quneitra to express their deep resentment over the presence of Israeli occupation forces at the peak of Mount Hermon and in a so-called “buffer zone” inside the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

The demonstrations were held on Monday in the towns of Madinat al-Salam and Khan Arnabeh, where participants chanted slogans against Netanyahu and the occupying Tel Aviv regime.

They voiced their protest at the illegal deployment of Israeli troops in southern Syria, and vehemently denounced the Zionist entity’s aggressive policies against Syria.

The protesters shouted, “Israel, get out of Syria,” and demanded the complete withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from southern Syria.

Meanwhile, locals are going to hold rallies in the town of Jasim, and elsewhere in Dara’a province on Tuesday in a strong show of condemnation of foreign intervention in Syria’s domestic affairs and violation of its national sovereignty.

The organizers said the forthcoming rallies will center on total rejection of interference in the Arab country’s internal issues, as well as utmost respect for its territorial integrity and independence of decision-making.

The protest rallies come as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the regime’s forces will maintain an indefinite military presence at the summit of the Hermon, and the adjacent security zone.

Mount Hermon, known as Jabal al-Shaykh in Arabic, is a huge cluster of snowcapped mountain peaks towering above the Syria-Lebanon border.

It overlooks the Damascus countryside as well as the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War.

Israeli military forces “will remain at the top of Mount Hermon and the buffer zone indefinitely to protect our settlements and thwart any threat,” said Netanyahu at an officers' course graduation ceremony in Holon city, south of Tel Aviv.

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He called on Syria's new administration to implement a “full demilitarization” of southern Syria, including the provinces of Quneitra, Dara’a, and Suwayda.

Netanyahu also warned that Israel “would not permit” forces affiliated with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, or the new Syrian army, to enter the area south of Damascus.

Militant factions, led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, toppled Bashar al-Assad’s government on December 8, 2024.

Following the downfall of Assad’s government, the Israeli military has been launching airstrikes against military installations, facilities, and arsenals belonging to Syria’s now-defunct army.

Israel has been widely and vehemently condemned over termination of the 1974 ceasefire agreement with Syria, and exploiting the chaos in the Arab nation in the wake of Assad’s downfall to make a land grab.

The buffer zone in the occupied Golan Heights was created by the United Nations after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.  A UN force of about 1,100 troops had patrolled the area since then.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, said in December that the presence of Israeli soldiers, however long it lasts, violates the deal that established the buffer zone.

That agreement “needs to be respected, and occupation is occupation, whether it lasts a week, a month or a year, it remains occupation,” Dujarric pointed out.

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