Netanyahu: IDF Will Remain in Syrian Buffer Zone Until New Arrangement “Ensures Israel’s Security”

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Sparking UN concerns that Israel may seek to annex the bordering 1974 demilitarized buffer zone in Syrian territory, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Tuesday that Israel Defense Forces will remain in that area until another arrangement is in place “that ensures Israel’s security,” the Associated Press reports.

Incorporating Mount Hermon, the buffer zone was created by the United Nations between Syria and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights after the 1973 Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur war.

While the zone was being patrolled by UN forces up to now, Israeli forces entered the zone after Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad was ousted by Islamic rebel forces earlier this month.

Syria has been an official enemy of Israel and has engaged in several wars against the Jewish state since 1948. Accordingly, the Israeli government has raised concerns that the incoming Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Islamic insurgent group may eventually seek to attack Israel as well.

“We will stay … until another arrangement is found that ensures Israel’s security,” Netanyahu said during a tour of the buffer zone on Tuesday with Defense Minister Israel Katz. “The summit of the Hermon is the eyes of the state of Israel to identify our enemies who are nearby and far away,” Katz added.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement on Tuesday that Israel’s decades-long agreement to maintain the buffer zone “needs to be respected, and occupation is occupation, whether it lasts a week, a month or a year, it remains occupation,” AP reports.

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