“It is not possible to talk of the possibility of negotiations over a new agreement unless the occupation fully adheres the 1974 disengagement agreement and withdraws from the areas it has penetrated,” it added. On Monday, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said his country had an “interest in adding countries, Syria and Lebanon, our neighbors, to the circle of peace and normalization while safeguarding Israel’s essential and security interests.”
The statement came amid major shifts in the region’s power dynamics, including the fall of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December and the weakening of fellow Iran-backed Hezbollah after the Lebanese terror organization’s latest war with Israel. Following Assad’s ouster, Israeli troops entered the UN-patrolled buffer zone along the 1974 armistice line on the Golan Heights and other areas deeper inside southern Syria, with officials initially branded Syria’s new rulers “terrorists” due to their al-Qaeda-linked past and the Israeli Air Force waged a fierce campaign of aerial bombardment on what it said were military targets across the country. (Read More)
