Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday that Israel will “remain” in the territory it has captured in southern Syria following the regime change that ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
“The IDF will remain at the peak of Mount Hermon and in the security zone necessary to protect the Golan and Galilee settlements from threats looming from the Syrian side as the main lesson from the events of October 7,” Katz wrote on X.
While Katz cited alleged “threats” from Syria to justify the continued occupation, Israel has reported just one rocket attack from Syrian territory since the regime change, which did not cause any damage or casualties. The new Syrian government, led by former al-Qaeda leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, has also been very deferential toward Israel, even while facing significant Israeli airstrikes and an Israeli invasion of southwestern Syria.
Israel has also used the plight of the Syrian Druze minority to justify the occupation. Druze civilians in the southern city of Suwayda recently faced executions carried out by forces linked to the Syrian government, a government Israel helped put in power by constantly launching airstrikes against the former Assad government before it fell. “We will continue to protect the Druze in Syria as well,” Katz said.
Katz’s comments came a day after the Syrian government condemned an Israeli ground incursion in the area of Beit Jinn, a village in southern Syria near the Lebanon border. Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said Israel was advancing its “expansionist and partition plans.”
Despite the tensions, Syria has been engaged in negotiations with Israel, and the US is pushing for a potential “security deal” between the two sides, but they do not appear to have made any progress. Trump administration officials have also floated the idea of bringing the new Syria into the normalization deals known as the “Abraham Accords,” an idea Sharaa ruled out in comments on Tuesday.
“The accords were signed with states that had no occupied land or direct conflicts with Israel. Syria’s situation is different, we have the Golan Heights under occupation,” Sharaa said.
