Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that his extremist government has adopted a clear policy to "demilitarise" the area stretching from south of the Syrian capital to the Jabal al-Druze region in southern Syria.
"We have set a clear policy: demilitarisation of the region south of Damascus — from the Golan Heights to the Jabal al-Druze area. That is our first line," Netanyahu said in a recorded statement on Thursday.
"The second line is protecting the Druze in the Jabal al-Druze region," he said, referring to the mountainous area known as Jabal al-Arab, or Jabal Hauran, which lies in Syria's Sweida province and includes dozens of towns and villages at elevations of more than 5,900 feet.
Netanyahu, repeating his false claims of being the protector of Syria's Druze minority, said the dual-track approach would remain Israel's policy.
"We will not allow military forces to deploy south of Damascus, and we will not allow harm to come to the Druze in Jabal al-Druze," he claimed.
Israel, which has been conducting a genocide of Palestinians since October 2023, has repeatedly invoked the "protection of the Druze minority" as a justification for military aggression in southern Syria, including attempts to create a demilitarised buffer zone along its disputed border.
Leading Druze figures in Syria have consistently rejected those claims, issuing a joint statement condemning foreign intervention and reaffirming their commitment to a unified Syria, rejecting division and separatism.
Netanyahu claims truce 'achieved by force'
In the same statement, Netanyahu admitted that the Israeli military had struck Syrian army positions in Sweida on Wednesday, saying he had added the Syrian Defence Ministry in Damascus as a direct target.
On Wednesday, Israel launched one of its most extensive attacks in recent months, with air strikes on more than 160 targets across four Syrian provinces: Sweida, Daraa, Damascus, and its countryside.
The strikes hit the General Staff headquarters and the vicinity of the presidential palace in the capital.
In the process, Israel killed more than 30 Syrians and wounded nearly 100, prompting strong condemnation from all quarters.
Despite the absence of a threat from Syria's new transitional government, Israel has carried out near-daily air raids in recent months, killing civilians and destroying military sites, equipment and ammunition.
Netanyahu claimed that a ceasefire had since been reached and Syrian forces had withdrawn to Damascus. "That's important," he said.
"This ceasefire was achieved by force — not through requests or pleas, but by force."
Earlier on Thursday, Türkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned Tel Aviv’s continued aggression on Syria, warning Israel is a lawless, rule-breaking, unprincipled, arrogant, and terrorist state that exploits regional dynamics to justify its actions.
"Israel has been using the Druze as an excuse to move its banditry into neighbouring Syria for the past two days," Erdogan said. "At this point, the biggest problem in our region is Israel’s aggression. If the monster (Israel) is not stopped now, it will set our region and the world on fire."
Experts say the inability of the newly formed Syrian government's military structure to fully secure control is strengthening the hand of Hikmat al-Hijri, a double-dealing Druze warlord in Sweida who went from being a religious figure associated with Iran's Axis of Resistance to saying "Israel is not the enemy".
Israel has occupied most of Syria's Golan Heights since 1967.
Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in late 2024, Israel expanded its occupation in the Golan Heights and seized control of the Syrian demilitarised zone.
