Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa has said that Israel "had a plan to divide Syria and drag us into a battleground with Iran.”
In a televised interview with Syrian channel Alikhbariya on Friday, Al Sharaa said that Israel was “surprised by the (Bashar al-Assad) regime’s ouster.”
He said that his country is engaged in negotiations with Israel over a security agreement aimed at reviving the 1974 accord or adopting a similar framework.”
Despite the new Syrian administration, which has been in place since late December 2024, posing no direct threat to Israel, the Israeli military has repeatedly crossed into Syrian territory, carrying out air strikes that killed civilians and destroyed military sites, vehicles, weapons and ammunition.
For the past seven months, the Israeli army has occupied Syria’s Mount Hermon in Israel’s farthest advance from its borders and maintains a 15-kilometre (9.32-mile) wide ‘security strip’ in some southern areas, controlling more than 40,000 Syrians within the occupied buffer zone.
Israel has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967 and expanded its incursion following the events leading to Assad’s ousting in late 2024.
