A war monitor said Tuesday that Israel had "destroyed the most important military sites in Syria" with a flurry of airstrikes since the fall of president Bashar al-Assad's government.
Israel, which borders Syria, sent troops into a buffer zone on the east of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights after Assad's fall, in what Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described as a "limited and temporary step" for "security reasons". According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Israeli forces are in the countryside near Damascus.
It has also carried out "more than 300 air strikes on Syrian territory" over the last 48 hours with the aim of destroying the former regime's military capabilities, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
"Israel destroyed the most important military sites in Syria, including Syrian airports and their warehouses, aircraft squadrons, radars, military signal stations, and many weapons and ammunition depots in various locations in most Syrian governorates," the Britain-based Observatory said in a statement Tuesday.
"The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has been able to document around 310 strikes" carried out by "Israeli warplanes" since the announcement of the fall of Assad on Sunday morning, the monitor add, while AFP journalists in the capital reported hearing loud explosions early Tuesday.
Near the port city of Latakia, Israel targeted an air defense facility and damaged Syrian naval ships as well as military warehouses.
In and around the capital Damascus, strikes targeted military installations, research centers, and the electronic warfare administration.
Early Tuesday, AFP journalists heard loud explosions in Damascus, hours after the strikes reported by the Observatory.
Iran has condemned Israel's incursion into a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights on the border with Syria as a "violation" of the law.
"This aggression is a flagrant violation of the United Nations charter," foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said in a statement published Monday night.
The Israeli military on Tuesday denied reports that its tanks were advancing towards Damascus, insisting that Israeli forces were stationed in a buffer zone near the Israeli-Syrian border.
"The reports circulated by some media outlets claiming that the Israeli Defense Forces (military) are advancing towards or nearing Damascus are completely false," military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on X. "The IDF forces are stationed within the buffer zone and at defensive points near the border in order to protect Israel's borders."
The UN special envoy for Syria called on Israel to halt its military movements and bombardments inside Syria.
"We are continuing to see Israeli movements and bombardments into Syrian territory. This needs to stop. This is extremely important," Geir Pedersen told reporters in Geneva.
"The realities so far is that the HTS and also the other armed groups have been sending good messages to the Syrian people,"he also told reporters in Geneva.
"They have been sending messages of unity, of inclusiveness," he said, adding that "we have also seen... reassuring things on the ground".
But "what we need not to see is of course that the good statements and what we are seeing on the ground at the beginning, that this is not followed up in practice in the days and the weeks ahead of us".
Turkey accused Israel of an "occupying mentality" after its forces entered a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights after the ouster of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad.
"We strongly condemn Israel's entry into the separation zone between Israel and Syria," a foreign ministry statement said, adding: "In this sensitive period.. Israel is once again displaying its occupying mentality."
With AFP
Comments