ARAB AND WORLD
Sun 15 Dec 2024 8:55 pm - Jerusalem Time
Despite the "moderate tone", Al-Julani worries Israel
Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz said Sunday that threats to Israel from Syria remain despite the moderate tone of the leaders of the opposition forces who ousted President Bashar al-Assad a week ago, amid Israeli military measures to confront such threats.
"The immediate dangers facing the country have not disappeared and recent developments in Syria are increasing the strength of the threat, despite the moderate image claimed by opposition leaders," Katz told officials scrutinizing Israel's defense budget, according to a statement.
On Saturday, the commander-in-chief of the military operations department, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who is described as Syria's current de facto leader, said that Israel is using false pretexts to justify its attacks on Syria, but he is not interested in getting involved in new conflicts while the country is focusing on reconstruction.
Sharaa leads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which led armed factions that ousted Assad from power last Sunday, ending the family's five-decade rule.
Since then, Israel has moved into a demilitarized zone in Syria established after the 1973 war, including the Syrian side of the strategic Mount Hermon overlooking Damascus, where its forces took control of an abandoned Syrian military post.
Israel, which has said it has no intention of staying there and describes the incursion into Syrian territory as a limited and temporary measure to ensure border security, has also carried out hundreds of strikes on strategic weapons stockpiles in Syria.
It said it was destroying strategic weapons and military infrastructure to prevent their use by the armed opposition groups that ousted Assad from power, some of which grew out of militant groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.
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Despite the "moderate tone", Al-Julani worries Israel