The buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights was created by the U.N. after the 1973 Mideast war. A

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israeli troops will remain in Syrian territory indefinitely, and that blurs the border with Israel's northern neighbor.

By Samia Nakhoul DUBAI (Reuters) - 2025 will be a year of reckoning for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his country's arch foe Iran. The veteran Israeli leader is set to cement his strategic goals: tightening his military control over Gaza,

Israeli fighter jets have launched hundreds of airstrikes, while soldiers have seized a buffer zone and captured military posts in territory formerly under Syrian control.

With Russia’s diminished influence in Syria, Ukraine calls on Israel to reconsider its stance and provide essential defensive weapons and technology.

Ankara's growing military presence in Syria has led to a diplomatic clash between former allies Israel and Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has supported Hamas, even hinting at some sort of armed intervention.

Assad’s fall to bomb all the Syrian military assets it wanted to keep out of the rebels’ hands – striking nearly 500 targets, destroying the navy, and taking out, it claims, 90% of Syria’s known surface-to-air missiles.

Israel said it had wiped out the vast majority of the Syrian military's assets, including huge chunks of its air-defense network.

Israel is celebrating the fall of Assad because it breaks the noose that Iran had been patiently tightening around Israel’s borders in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Tehran’s pincer is now broken and rendered useless. From the point of view of Israel’s wider conflict with the Islamic Republic, the collapse of Assad’s regime is a strategic victory.

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin denied on Thursday that Russia's nine-year intervention in Syria had been a failure, but expressed concern about Israel's military operations there since the toppling of his ally Bashar al-Assad.

Jolani, urged Israel to stop airstrikes after a bomb so powerful it reportedly measured on the Richter scale was dropped on Syria

The Israeli military hit weapons depots and air defenses, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Israel has said it aims to keep military equipment away from extremists.