By Shahrokh Saei
TEHRAN- Israel has carried out an unprecedented air campaign in Syria over the past days as the apartheid and occupation regime is trying to wield its hegemonic power.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had carried out up to 500 strikes across Syria since the collapse of the Syrian government at the weekend.
The air raids are much larger than 1967 when Israel occupied Syria’s Golan Heights.
Israel has destroyed the Arab nation’s strategic military infrastructure.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said earlier this week that Israel has hit Syrian military facilities and long-range missiles to prevent them from falling “into the hands of extremists.”
He implicitly referred to armed groups which took control of Damascus on Sunday and announced the fall of president Bashar Assad’s government.
Israel is accused of supporting the armed groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
They launched an offensive in Aleppo late last month and took control of major cities in Syria within days.
Meanwhile, Israel has exploited instability in Syria to execute a land grab.
The regime has deployed ground forces both into and beyond a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights for the first time in 50 years.
Syrian sources said on Tuesday that Israel had breached Syrian territory beyond the occupied Golan Heights and were just 25km from Damascus.
Israel claims its military presence in Syria is aimed at ensuring that the regions adjacent to the occupied Golan Heights are not exposed to any potential security threats.
Israel carries out unprecedented airstrikes in Syria as the regime’s army executes a land grab policy. But the Golan Heights possesses a significance far beyond that.
Israel captured the rocky plateau during the Six-Day War of 1967 and unilaterally annexed it in 1981 in defiance of international law. Israel and Syria signed an agreement in 1974 and a UN observer force has been in place on the ceasefire line in the Golan Heights since then.
Israel’s latest land incursion into Syria has violated the agreement.
The Golan Heights, situated in the southwest corner of Syria, is around 60 kilometers from Damascus.
From the top of the plateau, Israel can oversee much of southern Syria and monitor Syrian movements.
Since chaos broke out in Syria in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring, Israel has aided and abetted militants who took up arms against the Assad government.
US media revealed in 2015 that Israel provided medical treatment to terrorists affiliated to al-Qaeda and its offshoot Nusra Front who had been wounded in fighting in Syria.
Established in 2012 by ISIL, the Nusra Front separated from the group a year later and pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda. In 2017, it cut its connections with al-Qaeda and allied with other factions to rebrand itself as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
Israel played a key role in assisting the HTS to conquer Syrian cities. The regime did so in line with it plans to turn Syria into a vassal state and now expects HTS rebels to act as its stooges.
By destroying Syria’s military infrastructure and grabbing addition land, Israel wants to make sure the new rulers of the country will not rebel against the regime.
In short, Israel wants the rebels to be amenable to its expansionist ambitions.
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