Multiples air attacks occurred in the city of Dar’a, in the south-east of the country, in the area between Lebanon, Jordan and Israel.
Israel is taking advantage of the collapse of the regime to advance into Syrian territory, occupying an outpost on the summit of Mount Hermon, in the Golan Heights. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Golan Heights ceasefire agreement, reached with Syria in 1974 in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, ended with the collapse of the Assad regime. So Israel assumed control of the interposition zone presided over by the UNDOF observers – United Nations Disengagement Observer Force- declaring to the United States and the UN that it is only “a tactical and temporary measure”.
Qatar, Iraq and Saudi Arabia have criticized Israel’s occupation of land in the Syrian Golan, claiming that Netanyahu is realizing the “Greater Israel” project by conquering Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, without control by the international community, as if Israel had the right to invade, occupy and annex territories having full impunity. Israel conquered the Golan Heights during the 1967 Six-Day War, with the subsequent annexation of the territory, although much of the international community has never recognized the occupation, believing the area to belong to Syria.
Western leaders celebrate the fall of Assad as an opportunity for the Syrians, but remain totally silent on this new invasion. For Syrians, the Golan Heights have a deep-rooted meaning of belonging. Abu Mohammad al Golani, the leader of the armed group Hayat Tahrir al Sham, Organization for the Liberation of the Levant, which led the anti-Assad forces to conquer northern Syria and Damascus, took this battle name in reference to the Golan, place of origin of his family.
Tahrir means “liberation”, but so far we have seen little freedom in the country. Al Golani is trying to transform himself from a leader affiliated with al-Qaeda and jihadism into a figurehead who promotes pluralism, but doubts are remaining about his democratic turn, despite his attempts at moderation. Arshad Mehmood, a journalist specializing in conflict zones, reported that the Afghan Taliban were the first group in the world to officially congratulate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham for overthrowing the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was described as a ” source of war and instability”. The Taliban have also expressed optimism declaring that “a system of governance rooted in Islamic principles could bring stability and prosperity to the region”, and this is certainly not a good news for all those who hope for a free and democratic Syria,
far from any form of fundamentalism. Meanwhile, huge lines of thousands of Syrian refugees formed at the Turkish-Syrian border to return home after the collapse of Assad’s government. There are more than 3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey and another 4 million elsewhere, largely in Jordan, Lebanon and Germany, who were forced to flee the country after the civil war broke out in 2011 and who want to return to help rebuild their own tormented country.
