Israel attacks area south of Damascus after new Syrian government condemns incursion

'We will not allow southern Syria to become southern Lebanon,' says Israeli Defence Ministry

Fragments from an Israeli missile strike on a Syrian army weapons depot in December. Israel struck areas south of Damascus on Tuesday. AFP

The Israeli army said on Wednesday that it had carried out overnight air strikes to the south of Damascus, after Syria's new government called for Israel to withdraw from the southern part of the country.

After the fall of former president Bashar Al Assad's regime in December, Israel has significantly expanded its incursions into southern Syria.

“We will not allow southern Syria to become southern Lebanon,” a representative of Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said after the strike. “Any attempt by the Syrian regime forces and the country's terrorist organisations to establish themselves in the security zone in southern Syria will be met with fire.”

The Israeli air force is “now attacking strongly in southern Syria as part of the new policy we have defined of pacifying the area", the representative added. The Israeli army said it had struck “military targets” in southern Syria, including “command centres and multiple sites containing weapons”.

“The [Israeli military] will continue to operate in order to remove any threat to Israelis,” the military added.

It's not clear if the targets were HTS and government-linked forces or from another group. Syria TV said Israeli raids had hit the town of Kisweh, about 20km south of Damascus, and another town in the southern province of Deraa.

The air strikes came hours after Syria’s new government denounced Israel’s occupation of its territory and called for a full withdrawal of its forces, according to the closing statement of a national conference on Tuesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel would not allow the new government’s forces to operate in parts of Syrian territory, calling for the “full demilitarisation of southern Syria from troops of the new Syrian regime in the Quneitra, Deraa and Suwaida provinces".

“We will not allow forces from the HTS organisation or the new Syrian army to enter the area south of Damascus,” Mr Netanyahu said, referring to Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, a former Al Qaeda affiliate that led the lightning offensive that ended the Assad regime. The group is now leading the new administration in Damascus.

Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes across Syria since December, saying it was attacking military assets belonging to the Assad regime to stop them from falling into the hands of rebel groups.

Mr Al Assad's fall has also allowed Israel to push through a buffer zone between the occupied Golan Heights and southern Syria, establishing military positions inside a UN-monitored demilitarised zone.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Syrian cities on Tuesday, including Damascus, Sweida, Daraa, Latakia, Tartus and Aleppo, to protest against the Israeli military presence and the comments by Mr Netanyahu.

"I am here to support the people of my country and to affirm that Syria is sovereign over its entire territory," Marwa Al Maqbil, an artist at a rally outside the headquarters of the UN in Damascus, told news agency AFP.