A general view of the Israeli village of Gahjar on left and the Lebanese village of Khiam on right is shown from Mount Hermon, the strategic outpost at the crossroads between Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. Israel’s seizure of the site in the wake of the Assad regime’s collapse drew condemnation from Syria’s new government on Friday. File Photo by Atef Safadi/EPA-EFE
Dec. 14 (UPI) — Syria’s interim government has asked the United Nations to intervene in Israel’s occupation of a key site in the strategically important Golan Heights following the collapse of the regime of former strongman leader Bashar al-Assad.
In a pair of letters sent Friday to the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General António Guterres, Syria’s permanent representative to the U.N., Qusay Al-Dahak, urged the world body to force Israel to relinquish an abandoned position overlooking the city of Damascus, which it seized earlier this week.
The letters are believed to be the first communications between the new de facto authorities in Syria, led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, and the United Nations.
Dahak’s appeals to the U.N. were posted onto the X social media platform Friday by Syrian Kurdish journalist Sulaiman Ahmed. In the documents, the ambassador calls Israel’s seizure of the Mount Hermon outpost — which sits on the border between Syria, Lebanon and a U.N.-enforced demilitarized zone — to be illegal and a violation of a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria.
“At a time when the Syrian Arab Republic is witnessing a new phase in its history in which its people aspire to establish a state of freedom, equality and the rule of law and to realize their hopes for prosperity and stability, the Israeli occupation army has incursed into additional areas of Syrian territory in Mount Hermon and Quneitra Governorate,” he wrote.
Syria’s new leadership, Dahak said, “condemns in the strongest terms this Israeli aggression,” which he characterized as “a grave violation” of the 1974 disengagement agreement and said requires “firm and immediate measures to compel Israel to immediately cease its ongoing attacks on Syrian territory.”
In the hours after HTS-led rebel forces overthrew the Assad regime on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces moved in to seize the Mount Hermon outpost, which offers commanding views of Damascus as well as Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, where Hezbollah militants have long held control.
The outpost had been patrolled by U.N. peacekeepers.
Guterres this week stressed that the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement “remains in force” and must be upheld, “including by ending all unauthorized presence in the area of separation and refraining from any action that would undermine the ceasefire and stability in Golan.”
However, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the overthrow of the Assad regime had rendered the 1974 deal moot and declared that Israel would occupy the buffer zone as a “temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found.”
“If we can establish neighborly relations and peaceful relations with the new forces emerging in Syria, that’s our desire. But if we do not, we will do whatever it takes to defend the State of Israel and the border of Israel,” he told reporters.