Thousands of people have staged rallies in Syria’s southwestern province of Quneitra to express their deep resentment over the presence of Israeli occupation forces at the peak of Mount Hermon and in a so-called “buffer zone” inside the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
The demonstrations were held on Monday in the towns of Madinat al-Salam and Khan Arnabeh, where participants chanted slogans against Netanyahu and the occupying Tel Aviv regime.
They voiced their protest at the illegal deployment of Israeli troops in southern Syria, and vehemently denounced the Zionist entity’s aggressive policies against Syria.
The protesters shouted, “Israel, get out of Syria,” and demanded the complete withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from southern Syria.
Meanwhile, locals are going to hold rallies in the town of Jasim, and elsewhere in Dara’a province on Tuesday in a strong show of condemnation of foreign intervention in Syria’s domestic affairs and violation of its national sovereignty.
The organizers said the forthcoming rallies will center on total rejection of interference in the Arab country’s internal issues, as well as utmost respect for its territorial integrity and independence of decision-making.
The protest rallies come as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the regime’s forces will maintain an indefinite military presence at the summit of the Hermon, and the adjacent security zone.
Mount Hermon, known as Jabal al-Shaykh in Arabic, is a huge cluster of snowcapped mountain peaks towering above the Syria-Lebanon border.
It overlooks the Damascus countryside as well as the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War.
Israeli military forces “will remain at the top of Mount Hermon and the buffer zone indefinitely to protect our settlements and thwart any threat,” said Netanyahu at an officers’ course graduation ceremony in Holon city, south of Tel Aviv.
He called on Syria’s new administration to implement a “full demilitarization” of southern Syria, including the provinces of Quneitra, Dara’a, and Suwayda.
Netanyahu also warned that Israel “would not permit” forces affiliated with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, or the new Syrian army, to enter the area south of Damascus.
Militant factions, led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, toppled Bashar al-Assad’s government on December 8, 2024.
Following the downfall of Assad’s government, the Israeli military has been launching airstrikes against military installations, facilities, and arsenals belonging to Syria’s now-defunct army.
Israel has been widely and vehemently condemned over termination of the 1974 ceasefire agreement with Syria, and exploiting the chaos in the Arab nation in the wake of Assad’s downfall to make a land grab.
The buffer zone in the occupied Golan Heights was created by the United Nations after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. A UN force of about 1,100 troops had patrolled the area since then.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, said in December that the presence of Israeli soldiers, however long it lasts, violates the deal that established the buffer zone.
That agreement “needs to be respected, and occupation is occupation, whether it lasts a week, a month or a year, it remains occupation,” Dujarric pointed out.
But don’t you know, Hezboallah and Iran are obviously a greater threat to Syrian sovereignty then the ethnostate illegally occupying your territory.
The hatred I see some people spout against Hezboallah as some demonic evil is appalling. Yet so many of these same people, (quite a few even referring to themselves as “pan-arabs”) go to the most absurd lengths to justify Jolani’s impotence against Israel.
They speak with such passion and conviction against “Assadist” brutality, and how you must respect the will of the Syrian people in this “liberation” from such a tyrant. A moment later when you criticize the regime’s utter refusal to act against Israel, and they tell you that syria is not currently in a position to combat the zionists, and that Jolani must regroup.
I’ve never seen such a blatant display of speaking from two mouths at the same time. I’ve no love for Assad, (I don’t say this as some way to gain favor socially,I know this is a forum among comrades), he was clearly incompetent in the concepts of diplomacy, military, and political maneuver as can be seen by today’s results. Yet my distaste for Bashar’s ineptitude does not trump my basic understanding that Wahabbi fundamentalist scum, all of which were funded and maintained by the US and their vassels, were not going to improve Syria’s situation in any way, nor would they build any kind of sovereignty for Syira.
Even many Shia in my community within the west are unsure about the situation. Simply saying we must “pray for the best outcome” while attempting to delude themselves into hope, which I refuse to idly allow. I’ve made it clear to every fellow shiite ice met that there is no advantages here, none at the large scale at least, and that Syria is now on the brink of an inevitable brutal violence not dissimilar all that was heard before. Complacency in opinion is not something I allow in regards to Syria when I speak with stated followers of the Ahlul Baiit.
When I see people perform the most elegant display of lamentation every year during Ashurah, I expect them to understand the importance of the story they are weeping to.