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Israel to control Syrian buffer zone until new force deployed to prevent terrorist takeover, says Netanyahu

Netanyahu defends IDF seizure of demilitarized zone on Syrian side of the Golan Heights, says Israel’s military must remain there to prevent jihadi infiltration until a new ‘force’ can secure the area.

By World Israel News Staff

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel’s seizure of a demilitarized zone on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, saying the move was necessary to prevent new “October 7th-style attacks” on Israel.

In a statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office Thursday morning, Netanyahu warned that the fall of the Assad regime last Sunday left a “vacuum” on Israel’s northern border that could potentially be exploited by Islamist elements operating in Syria.

“The collapse of the Syrian regime created a vacuum on Israel’s border and in the buffer zone established by the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement,” Netanyahu said.

“Israel will not permit jihadi groups to fill that vacuum and threaten Israeli communities on the Golan Heights with October 7th-style attacks. That is why Israeli forces entered the buffer zone and took control of strategic sites near Israel’s border.”

Netanyahu emphasized that Israel’s control of the demilitarized zone is temporary and will end once a new force can secure the area. He did not specify who would be responsible for the new force or when such a force could be assembled.

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“This deployment is temporary until a force that is committed to the 1974 agreement can be established and security on our border can be guaranteed,” he said.

The Golan Heights demilitarized zone was established after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, during which Syrian forces overran much of the Golan during the initial invasion, before IDF troops retook the strategic plateau and drove into the interior of Syria towards Damascus.

To disengage the entangled Israeli and Syrian forces, the U.S. negotiated the May 1974 Disengagement of Forces agreement, under which Israel ceded 200 square miles of the 700 square-mile Golan. Nearly half of the area handed over to Syria became a demilitarized zone with a United Nations observer force to ensure compliance with the ceasefire.

On Sunday, shortly after the collapse of the Assad regime, Israeli tanks and infantry units occupied the DMZ, establishing a new security zone.