Egypt condemns Israel’s seizure of Syrian territory following Assad’s fall

Egypt’s Foreign Minister has criticized Israel’s seizure of Syrian territory on the Israeli border after the fall of the Assad regime. He labeled it a “severe breach” of a 1974 armistice deal, the Financial Times reports. 

On Sunday, Israel moved tanks and infantry into a demilitarized buffer zone near the Golan Heights – a region annexed by Israel in 1981. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the incursion into Syrian territory is temporary and is “to ensure no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel”.

The toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s decades-long regime was largely driven by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former affiliate of Al Qaeda. The leader of the group has, in recent years, tried to rebrand himself as a moderate but it remains to be seen how he plans on governing.

On Monday, Egypt accused Israel of exploiting a “vacuum in Syria in order to occupy more Syrian land and to impose new facts on the ground in contravention of international law”. 

It is calling on the United Nations Security Council and the international community to strongly condemn the “Israeli attacks” on Syria.