KEY POINTS
- UN special envoy urged Israel to stop its military movements and bombardments in Syria.
- Israeli strikes have destroyed key Syrian military sites.
- Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UN condemned Israel’s seizure of a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights.
- Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader Ahmed al-Sharaa initiated talks with outgoing PM Mohammed al-Jalali for a peaceful transfer of power.
DAMASCUS, Syria: The UN special envoy for Syria called Tuesday on Israel to halt its military movements and bombardments in Syria, after a war monitor reported 300 air strikes since the fall of president Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Assad fled Syria as an alliance of opposition groups swept into the capital Damascus, ending five decades of rule by the al-Assad family on Sunday.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader who headed the offensive that forced Assad out, has begun talks on a transfer of power and vowed to pursue former senior officials responsible for torture and war crimes.
His group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham along with other groups led the offensive against Assad’s government.
Syria’s civil war killed 500,000 people and forced half the country to flee their homes, millions of them finding refuge abroad.
The country now faces profound uncertainty after the collapse of al-Assad family’s five-decade government.
Israel has conducted many strikes on Syria since the civil war began in 2011.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had recorded more than 300 Israeli strikes since Assad was ousted.
Geir Pedersen, the UN special envoy for Syria, on Tuesday called on Israel to stop.
“We are continuing to see Israeli movements and bombardments into Syrian territory. This needs to stop. This is extremely important,” he told reporters in Geneva.
On Monday, Israel said it had struck “remaining chemical weapons or long-range missiles and rockets”.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources around Syria, said Israeli strikes had “destroyed the most important military sites in Syria”.
The group said the strikes targeted weapons depots, navy vessels and a defence research centre.
With Syria in flux, AFP journalists in Damascus were unable to obtain official comment from the Syrian side on the strikes though they saw the defence research centre had been destroyed.
In Latakia on the coast, smoke and fire was still rising Tuesday morning from the wreckage of navy vessels equipped with machine guns and rocket launchers, half sunken in the water, AFP reported.
A worker at the port told AFP employees still had to turn up for work.
“Employees are still coming in to take care of state facilities even after the regime fell,” said Ahmad Khabaze.
Israel, which borders Syria, also sent troops into a buffer zone 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”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel for almost 60 years, would perpetually remain part of Israel.
Israel’s backer the United States said the incursion must be “temporary”, after the United Nations said Israel was violating a 1974 deal.
The Israeli military on Tuesday denied reports that its tanks were advancing towards Damascus, insisting that its forces were stationed within the buffer zone.
The alliance of Syria’s opposition groups launched their offensive on November 27, the same day a ceasefire took effect in the Israel-Hezbollah war.
Saudi Arabia on Monday said that Israel’s action to seize Syrian areas in an UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights and its attacks on Syrian territory confirm continued Israeli violation of international law.
The Saudi Press Agency (SPA), cited a statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying that the assaults carried out by the Israeli occupation government, including the seizure of the buffer zone in the Golan Heights and the targeting of Syrian territories by Israeli occupation forces, affirm Israel’s continued violation of international law and its determination to undermine opportunities for Syria to restore its security, stability, and territorial integrity.
The statement further said, “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia emphasizes the necessity for the international community to condemn these Israeli violations, reaffirm respect for Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and acknowledge that the Golan Heights is occupied Arab Syrian Arab land.”
The UN has warned that Israeli military activity along the Golan Heights buffer zone in Syria “would constitute a violation” of a 1974 pact on disengagement between Syria and Israel.
“The peacekeepers at (the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, or UNDOF) informed the Israeli counterparts that these acts would constitute a violation of the 1974 disengagement agreement, that there should be no military forces or activities in the area of separation,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
Dujarric further said that UNDOF can also confirm that the Israeli military personnel “entered the area of separation and have been moving within that region where they remain in at least three locations throughout the area of separation.
Turkey on Tuesday accused Israel of an “occupying mentality” after its forces entered a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights.
“We strongly condemn Israel’s entry into the separation zone between Israel and Syria,” a foreign ministry statement said, reiterating support for Syria’s “sovereignty, political unity and territorial integrity”.
“In this sensitive period, when the possibility of achieving the peace and stability the Syrian people have desired for many years has emerged, Israel is once again displaying its occupying mentality.”
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader al-Sharaa said on Tuesday: “We will not hesitate to hold accountable the criminals, murderers, security and army officers involved in torturing the Syrian people.”
ALSO READ: Israel Carries Out Over 300 Strikes Across Syria After Fall of Assad’s Rule
al-Sharaa held talks on Monday with outgoing prime minister Mohammed al-Jalali “to coordinate a transfer of power that guarantees the provision of services” to Syria’s people, according to a statement on Telegram.
“We will offer rewards to anyone who provides information about senior army and security officers involved in war crimes,” al-Sharaa said, saying the incoming authorities would seek the return of officials who have fled abroad.
He met with outgoing Syrian prime minister Mohammed al-Jalali and discussed the “transfer of power”, the group said Monday.
The fall of Assad has sparked a frantic search by families of the tens of thousands of people held in the country’s jails and detention centres.
As they advanced towards Damascus, the opposition alliance released thousands of detainees, but many thousands more remain missing.
A large crowd gathered Monday outside Saydnaya jail to search for relatives, AFP reported.
