Israel says it has bombed missile and chemical weapons facilities

Israel has confirmed it is carrying retired aerial strikes connected Syria to people suspected chemic weapons and rocket sites.

Gideon Saar, the country's overseas minister, said this was to halt weapons falling "into the hands of extremists".

Media reports suggest determination person been dozens of Israeli aerial strikes successful the past 2 days, including connected a tract successful Damascus said to person been utilized for rocket improvement by Iranian scientists.

Also connected Monday, the Israeli subject released photos of its troops who crossed from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights into the demilitarised buffer portion successful Syria wherever UN peacekeepers are based.

It comes a time aft Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the subject had temporarily seized control of the alleged Area of Separation, saying the 1974 disengagement statement with Syria had "collapsed" with the rebel takeover of the country.

The Golan Heights is simply a rocky plateau astir 60km (40 miles) south-west of Damascus.

Israel seized the Golan from Syria successful the closing stages of the 1967 Six-Day War and unilaterally annexed it successful 1981. The determination was not recognised internationally, though the US did truthful unilaterally successful 2019.

Speaking astatine a quality league connected Monday, Saar said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was lone making "a precise constricted and impermanent step" taken for "security reasons".

He besides claimed that Israel had nary involvement successful meddling successful interior Syrian affairs and was acrophobic lone with defending its citizens.

Defence Minister Israel Katz meantime said the Israeli subject would "destroy dense strategical weapons" - including rocket and aerial defence systems.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, said connected Monday that the Israeli subject had conducted overnight strikes connected aggregate locations spanning coastal and confederate Syria.

"Since the archetypal hours aft the announcement of the autumn of the erstwhile regime, Israel began launching intensive aerial strikes, deliberately destroying weapons and ammunitions depots," it said.

The latest moves by Israel travel aft Syrian rebel fighters captured the capital, Damascus, and toppled Bashar al-Assad's regime. He and his begetter had been successful powerfulness successful the state since 1971.

Forces led by the Islamist absorption radical Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered Damascus successful the aboriginal hours of Sunday, earlier appearing connected authorities tv to state that Syria was present "free".

On Sunday, Netanyahu branded the illness of the Assad authorities a "historic time successful the Middle East".

The Assad authorities received overmuch enactment from Hezbollah and Russia successful the country's brutal civilian war. With Hezbollah progressive successful the Israel-Gaza warfare and cross-border aerial strikes betwixt Israel and Lebanon, and Russia expending immense resources connected its penetration of Ukraine, HTS, on with different rebel groups successful Syria, were capable to prehend connected the juncture and were yet capable to seizure ample swathes of Syria.

During the 2011 Syrian uprising, Israel made the calculation that Assad, contempt being an state of some Iran and Hezbollah, was a amended stake than what mightiness travel his regime.

On Sunday, Netanyahu insisted Israel would "send a manus of peace" to Syrians who wanted to unrecorded successful bid with Israel.

He said the IDF beingness successful the buffer portion was a "temporary antiaircraft presumption until a suitable statement is found".

"If we tin found neighbourly relations and peaceful relations with the caller forces emerging successful Syria, that's our desire. But if we bash not, we volition bash immoderate it takes to support the State of Israel and the borderline of Israel," helium said.

Israel is apt to beryllium much delicate implicit the Golan Heights, since HTS person Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani's household has roots there. Thousands of Israeli settlers present unrecorded successful the country alongside astir 20,000 Syrians, astir of them Druze, who stayed connected aft it was captured.

Israeli strikes successful Syria are thing new. It has antecedently acknowledged carrying retired hundreds of strikes successful caller years connected targets successful Syria that it says are linked to Iran and allied equipped groups specified arsenic Hezbollah.

The Israeli strikes successful Syria person reportedly been much predominant since the commencement of the warfare successful Gaza successful October 2023, successful effect to cross-border attacks connected bluish Israel by Hezbollah and different groups successful Lebanon and Syria.

Just past month, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, reported that a acceptable of strikes deed a weapons depot and different locations successful and astir an country adjacent Palmyra wherever families of Iran-backed militia fighters were, killing 68 Syrian and overseas fighters.