Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu entered Syrian territory on Tuesday, meeting with troops from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) who have occupied the former Syrian army post on Mount Hermon, the highest regional peak.
As Breitbart News reported, Israel has long had a base on the slopes of Mount Hermon, while the Syrian military had one at the peak, with the border between the two countries running along the mountain itself. Earlier this year, the IDF created an Alpine (or Mountain) Brigade to deal with possible border infiltrations across Mount Hermon and nearby Har (Mount) Dov, since the most mountainous part of the frontier between Israel and Syria is not fenced.
Last week, the IDF seized the top of Mount Hermon, and the Syrian position, after the Syrian military abandoned it with the fall of the Assad regime to rebels. Israel said it would keep troops in the strategic spot through the winter.
Netanyahu arrived at the peak via helicopter. His office released the following statement (translated from Hebrew):
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Tuesday, 17 December 2024), on the Hermon ridge, held an assessment with the Defense Minister, IDF Chief-of-Staff, the Head of Northern Command and the ISA Director.
The Prime Minister reviewed the IDF deployment in the area and set guidelines for the future.
Syrian rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa said Monday that he will not use Syrian territory to stage attacks on Israel, but wants Israel to leave Syrian territory and abide by a 1974 armistice agreement, which established a demilitarized zone between the two countries. (Israel has occupied the demilitarized zone since last week, and has moved beyond that strip of territory, both in the eastern Golan Heights and on the slopes of Mount Hermon.)
Israel argues that it must prevent the transfer of weapons through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and that while it wants peaceful relations with Syria, it also reserves the right to eliminate potential threats, including Syrian military assets and chemical weapons.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
