Israeli troops have seized a demilitarised buffer zone in the Golan Heights in a move that has been criticised by Egypt and Qatar.
Israel‘s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his forces had entered the 155-square mile area after a rebel advance ended Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s rule on Sunday.
The zone was established by a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Syria in 1974.
Mr Netanyahu said the 50-year-old deal had collapsed and Syrian troops had abandoned their positions in the zone, necessitating the Israeli takeover as a “temporary defensive position”.
It came as Egypt‘s foreign ministry condemned the seizure of the buffer zone and accused Israel of “exploiting the power vacuum… to occupy more Syrian territories and create a fait accompli in violation of international law”.
Cairo called for the United Nations Security Council to take “a firm position towards the Israeli aggression on Syria”.
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Qatar also condemned the seizure, with its foreign ministry calling it a “dangerous development”.
The Israelis captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six-Day War, fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states, primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, and they later annexed it.
The whole international community, apart from the United States, considers the strategic plateau to be occupied Syrian territory.
Image: An Israeli soldier in the Golan Heights buffer zone. Pic: Reuters
Speaking from Mount Bental, an observation point in the Golan Heights near the Syrian border on Sunday, Mr Netanyahu said the Assad regime fell as a “direct result of the blows we have inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah”.
Israel carried out attacks on Iran and the Lebanese militant group this year as fears grew the war in Gaza would spiral into a much wider regional conflict.
In his comments on Sunday, Mr Netanyahu said Tehran and Iranian-backed Hezbollah were the “main supporters of the Assad regime”.
Image: Israeli soldiers stand guard after the IDF seized the zone. Pic: Reuters
‘Octopus’s arms are being severed’
He was joined by his defence minister Israel Katz who said the fall of the Assad regime was a “severe blow” to the “Iranian-axis of evil”.
Mr Katz added: “The octopus’s arms are being severed one by one.”
Israel’s military later warned residents of five southern Syria communities to stay home for their safety as it took control of the buffer zone.
Following the success of the Syrian rebel offensive, Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said his country has a “special concern” that Israel is “using this situation” to its advantage.
The agreement that demarcated the buffer zone was reached after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which started when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel.
United Nations peacekeepers have patrolled the demilitarised buffer zone since 1974.
Image: Israeli military vehicles in the buffer zone. Pic: Reuters
Israel’s foreign minister said on Monday the country’s military has struck suspected chemical weapons sites and long-range rockets in Syria following the collapse of the Assad regime.
Gideon Saar said the attack was carried out to stop the weapons from falling into “the hands of extremists”.
Meanwhile, US forces have carried out dozens of airstrikes on Islamic State targets in central Syria, according to American officials.
In a statement, the US Central Command said the strikes were aimed at ensuring Islamic State does not take advantage of the situation in Syria.
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2:30
How the rebels’ capture of Syria unfolded
Assad regime falls
Syrian rebels said they had captured the country’s capital Damascus and ousted Mr Assad’s regime on Sunday after a lightning offensive that lasted just over a week.
The rebel forces seized military bases, toppled regime statues, freed prisoners and captured major cities as they brought an end to the Assad dynasty’s 54 years of rule.
Mr Assad and his family arrived in the Russian capital Moscow on Sunday as Syrians took to the streets to celebrate the successful rebel offensive.
A large-scale Russian attack through the night into Sunday injured at least 11 in Kyiv and killed three people in towns surrounding the capital.
There were attacks elsewhere as well, including drone strikes in Mykolaiv, where a residential building was hit.
Image: An apartment building destroyed after a Russian attack in Mykolaiv. Pic: State Emergency Service of Ukraine
‘Massive’ attack
In Kyiv, the city’s administration warned “the night will be difficult”, as people were urged to remain in shelters.
The city’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko described it as a “massive” attack.
He said: “Explosions in the city. Air defence forces are working. The capital is under attack by enemy UAVs. Do not neglect your safety! Stay in shelters!”
It came after at least 15 people were injured in attacks the night prior.
Russia claimed it also faced a Ukrainian drone attack on Sunday, and that it intercepted and destroyed around 100 of them near Moscow and across Russia’s central and southern regions.
Image: A municipality worker cleans up after a Russian drone strike on Kyiv. Pic: Reuters
Russia ‘dragging out the war’
Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine continued a prisoner exchange, marking a rare moment of cooperation in the war.
Amid the most recent attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated his calls for sanctions on Russia.
Russia “fills each day with horror and murder” and is “simply dragging out the war”, he said.
Image: A resident looks at an apartment building that was damaged in a Russian drone strike. Pic: Reuters
“All of this demands a response – a strong response from the United States, from Europe, and from everyone in the world who wants this war to end,” Mr Zelenskyy added.
Every day “gives new grounds for sanctions against Russia”, he said, and each day without pressure proves the “war will continue”.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is ready for “any form of diplomacy that delivers real results”.
Nine of a doctor’s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.
Warning: This article contains details of child deaths
Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.
Graphic footage shared by the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defence shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.
Rescuers can be seen battling fires and searching through a collapsed building, shouting out when they locate a body, before bringing the children out one by one and wrapping their remains in body bags.
In the footage, Dr Al Najjar’s husband, Hamdi Al Najjar, who is also a doctor, is put on to a stretcher and then carried to an ambulance.
The oldest of their children was only 12 years old, according to Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
Image: Nine children were killed in the strike. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he wrote in a social media post.
“In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted – Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
British doctors describe ‘horrific’ and ‘unimaginable’ attack
Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Al Najjar.
Speaking in a video diary on Friday night, Dr Graeme Groom said his last patient of the day was Dr Al Najjar’s 11-year-old son, who was badly injured and “seemed much younger as we lifted him on to the operating table”.
Image: Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar’s husband who is also a doctor, was taken to hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
The strike “may or may not have been aimed at his father”, Dr Groom said, adding that the man had been left “very badly injured”.
Dr Victoria Rose said the family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire”.
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
‘No political or military connections’
Dr Groom added: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here.
“The father was a physician at Nasser Hospital. He had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”
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2:21
Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies
He said it was “a particularly sad day”, while Dr Rose added: “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”
Sky News has approached the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began when the militant group stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
The head of the UN has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid after at least 60 people died in overnight airstrikes.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday the supplies approved so far “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required,” adding “the needs are massive and the obstacles are staggering”.
He warned that more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.
Image: A woman at the site of an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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1:44
Gaza: ‘Loads of children with huge burns’
Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but according to Mr Guterres, only about a third have been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.
The IDF said 107 vehicles carrying flour, food, medical equipment and drugs were allowed through on Thursday.
Many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine, experts have warned.
Meanwhile, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza overnight.
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Ten people died in the southern city of Khan Younis, and deaths were also reported in the central town of Deir al-Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.
Image: A body is carried out of rubble after an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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3:08
‘Almost everyone depends on aid’ in Gaza
The latest strikes came a day after two Israeli embassy workers were killed in Washington.
The suspect, named as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois, told police he “did it for Gaza”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of fuelling antisemitism following the shootings.
Mr Netanyahu also accused Sir Keir, Mr Macron and Mr Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.
Image: Palestinians search for casualties in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
But UK government minister Luke Pollard told Sky News on Friday morning he “doesn’t recognise” Mr Netanyahu’s accusation.
Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he was recalling negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.
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The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.