Israel unswayed by US peace efforts as it pursues expanded Syria buffer zone

Israel is seeking to establish a security zone in the 400 square kilometres its military has seized in southern Syria since the fall of the Assad regime a year ago, disregarding pressure from the US to establish peaceful ties with the country's new government, regional security sources say.

Repeated air strikes and raids, including one last week that killed 13 people, aim to clear the area of its inhabitants while also undermining Syrian President Ahmad Al Shara’s efforts to establish control over the entire country after 13 years of civil war, the experts said.

The November 28 raid on Beit Jin, a village in rural Damascus governorate, “was meant to show Al Shara that Israel will keep dealing with security threats from Syria the way it wants, regardless of the United States”, said a security source in Jordan whose brief is Syria.

Israel’s actions violate a 1974 armistice that led to the creation of a UN-controlled buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, seized during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Israel sent forces across the zone within days of Syrian rebel groups, led by Mr Al Shara’s Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, toppling president Bashar Al Assad on December 8 last year.

An Israeli tank enters the buffer zone between Israel and Syria in March. EPA

Israel has said that its new territorial acquisitions in Syria are aimed at ensuring its security by enlarging the buffer zone. In the last two years of Mr Al Assad's rule, groups linked to Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as other pro-Iranian factions, launched limited attacks against Israel from the Golan Heights frontier. But the 1974 armistice largely held.

Smugglers, not terrorists

Israel’s recent incursions did not meet any significant resistance until the raid on Beit Jin, a village close to both the Golan Heights and southern Lebanon.