Israeli military aviation attacked an weapons warehouse in Southern Syria, reported the Qatari television channel Al Jazeera.
According to the media, a weapons depot belonging to the Syrian army was bombed near the city of Izra, located in Daraa province, 70 km south of Damascus. The airstrike was accompanied by a series of explosions.
The Israeli army has begun to carry out attacks on such sites, fearing that the weapons located there could be used by “hostile elements” against the Jewish state.
Tel Aviv forces have moved beyond the buffer zone on the Golan Heights border with Syria, The New York Times reported, citing two Israeli officials.
According to them, the redeployment of Israeli troops outside the Golan is due to the fact that former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has left the country and this may lead to increased instability in the region.
Indirect confirmation of the presence of the army of the Jewish state outside the buffer zone, according to the publication, are the statements of the Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli army Herzi Halevi about the deployment of troops on Syrian territory.
On the morning of December 8, the Israeli army officially announced the deployment of its forces in the buffer zone on the border with Syria. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained, these actions were taken in connection with recent events in the Arab Republic, are defensive in nature and are a temporary measure.
Furthermore, according to Netanyahu, the 1974 agreement on the division of forces between Israel and Syria, according to which only UN peacekeepers can be present in the buffer zone of the Golan Heights, is now “disintegrated”, as the Syrian army, amid the change of power in Damascus, has left positions in border areas and the Jewish state deemed it necessary to occupy them in order to stop potential threats to its security. It later became known that the Israeli military had established control over the Syrian part of the Hermon mountain range.
After the capture of Damascus by the armed opposition in Syria, civil war and the collapse of the country may occur. This opinion was expressed by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi.
„We are following the development of events in Syria and we do not want to allow risks of starting a civil or religious war, partial or complete disintegration of Syria and turning it into a haven for terrorists,” he said on Iranian state television and radio.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran is also particularly concerned about the abuses by the Zionist regime, which has taken some actions since yesterday evening,", the diplomat added, referring to the incursion of the Israeli army into the buffer zone on the border with Syria.