Source: Mondoweiss.net
Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel’s intention to violate its disengagement agreement with Syria, as Israeli forces invaded and occupied several positions inside Syrian sovereign territory, including the summit of Mount Al-Sheikh.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel’s dissolution of its commitment to the 1974 forces disengagement agreement with Syria, which ended the 1973 war between the two countries. Netanyahu made his announcement in a televised statement from the occupied Syrian Golan Heights on Sunday.
Netanyahu’s declarations came shortly after Israeli forces breached the de-militarized buffer zone between the Israeli-occupied and the Syrian-held territory in the Golan. Israeli forces invaded and took over several positions inside Syrian sovereign territory, including the summit of Mount Al-Sheikh, with no resistance according to Israeli reports.
Early on Sunday, the Syrian rebel coalition “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham” announced the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The regime had ruled Syria for more than two decades and was preceded by the regime of Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad, since the 1970s. Simultaneously, Syrian opposition forces took over key government buildings in Damascus. Hours before, Al-Assad was reported to have fled the Syrian capital. Russia later confirmed that the Syrian president had been granted asylum in the country.
Overnight between Saturday and Sunday, Israeli warplanes bombed key targets in and around Damascus, including the capital’s military airport and the Syrian Scientific Research Center.
Syria fought Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973. Hafez Al-Assad took power in Syria in a military coup in 1970, in what was seen as one of the repercussions of Syria’s defeat by Israel in 1967. Under Hafez Al-Assad, Syria participated, along with Egypt, in the October 1973 war against Israel, and liberated part of its occupied territory in the Golan Heights. In 1974, Syria and Israel signed a ceasefire and “forces disengagement” agreement, which created a de-militarized zone between Israeli-occupied and Syrian-held territory.
Assad’s Syria also fought Israel in the Sultan Yacoub battle, during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, alongside Palestinian resistance groups, but didn’t participate directly in the rest of the war on Lebanon. Syria had sent forces into Lebanon in 1976, as part of a larger Arab coalition to contain the Lebanese civil war.
Throughout the 1990s, Assad used Syria’s military presence in Lebanon to influence Lebanese politics and became the main supporter of the Lebanese resistance during the rise of Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon. Syria represented Hezbollah in indirect negotiations with Israel, through the U.S., during the 1996 Israeli “grapes of wrath” assault on Lebanon, leading to the “April understanding” that stipulated avoiding the targeting of civilians on both sides.
Syria never recognized Israel, although under Hafez al-Assad, it engaged in negotiations with it in the late 1990s aimed at reaching an agreement based on Israel’s return of the Golan Heights in exchange for Syria’s recognition of Israel. Hafez al-Assad’s government insisted on signing peace with Israel only when Israel signed a final peace agreement with Palestinians that would lead to a Palestinian state. Neither of these things ever happened….