The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the Israeli defense minister indicated that Israel plans to maintain tighter, long-term security control over territory across its borders in Syria and Gaza, and take advantage of the weakness of its neighbors to better insulate itself from potential threats.

Israel has taken control of the 155-square-mile (260-kilometer) buffer zone separating it from Syria after the collapse of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime more than a week ago. The Israeli military has also taken control of Mount Hermon, a high ground in the buffer zone that offers a commanding view of the strategically sensitive territory.

According to the newspaper, "During a visit to the buffer zone and a summit with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered soldiers on Tuesday to set up fortifications and prepare for an extended stay. He described the summit as 'the eyes of the State of Israel.'"

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the rebel leader who led the offensive that toppled Assad, said in an interview Monday that there was no justification for Israeli military forces inside Syria. Katz described the rebels as extremists and said they needed to be deterred.

The United Nations and other countries including France, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt and Jordan have condemned Israel’s move into the buffer zone — created under a 1974 agreement between Israel and Syria that assigned U.N. peacekeeping forces there — as a violation of international law that threatens Syria’s territorial integrity. Israel said the agreement was void after Syrian troops abandoned their positions as the regime collapsed.

Meanwhile, signs that Israel is preparing for an indefinite presence in the Gaza Strip continued to grow, with Katz saying the IDF would maintain security control over the enclave just as it does in the occupied West Bank.

“My position on Gaza is clear: After we defeat Hamas’s military and governmental power in Gaza, Israel will have security control over Gaza with full freedom of action as it did in Judea and Samaria,” Katz said in a post on Twitter on Tuesday, using the biblical term for the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Authority partially controls some areas of the West Bank while Israel maintains tight security control and regularly carries out military raids.

Katz’s comments were unusually strong for a senior official and come as negotiations for a cease-fire in Gaza are underway. A halt to the fighting has proven elusive for months in part because of disagreements over Israel’s insistence on keeping troops in parts of the enclave.

Palestinians and some Israelis fear that security control would lead to a long-term military occupation of the Gaza Strip. That would require a large and costly force and burden Israel with the task of administering a civilian government over a population of about two million.

Analysts said the comparison with the West Bank was flawed because Israel has a security partner there in the form of the Palestinian Authority. Israel currently has no such partner in Gaza, which could be responsible for civil affairs such as education and garbage collection.

“With troops on the ground, Israel’s obligations increase,” Adil Haq, a professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey who focuses on the international law of armed conflict, told the newspaper.

Netanyahu has previously said that Israel will maintain security control over Gaza, and has previously ruled out the option of the Palestinian Authority running the territory instead of Hamas. Members of his Likud party and other parties in his coalition have expressed support for tighter control, including the establishment of Jewish settlements in the Strip.

The International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ highest court, said in an opinion in July that Israel had violated various international laws in its decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory, including Gaza and the West Bank. The court said that under international law, an occupation is supposed to be temporary, and that an occupying power has legal responsibilities towards the population of the occupied territory.

The court said Israel had committed acts that indicated that its occupation of the Palestinian territories did not appear to be temporary and that Israel had neglected some of its duties as an occupying power. Israel has challenged the court's opinion and its jurisdiction.

Since the early days of the invasion of Gaza, the Israeli military has been building a sprawling, 18-square-mile security corridor known as Netzarim—the name of a former Jewish settlement in the Strip. Consisting of military bases, outposts, electricity poles, cell towers and even a synagogue, the corridor bisects the Strip and controls the movement of Palestinians. Those seeking to move south must pass through one of two checkpoints that run through the corridor.

Katz's comments and Israel's construction of military infrastructure in Gaza suggest that the long-term future "is moving toward not just de facto control, but outright military control over the lives of Palestinians in Gaza," said Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization who worked on International Court of Justice cases.

Last November, Housing and Construction Minister Yitzhak Goldenbeff toured the area near the Gaza border with prominent settlement leader Daniella Weiss as they looked at a map showing planned future settlements in Gaza. “Jewish settlements here are the solution to the terrible slaughter,” he said, referring to the October 7, 2023, attack. Lawmakers from Netanyahu’s Likud party have attended two major conferences calling for resettlement in the Strip since the war began.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that Hamas had told mediators it would agree to a deal that would allow Israeli troops to remain in Gaza temporarily when the fighting stops. Previous rounds of talks have repeatedly faltered, but Hamas has shown more flexibility in recent weeks on several key issues. The mediators said the proposals include a willingness to accept Israeli troops temporarily staying in the Netzarim Corridor and the Philadelphi Corridor, a small strip of land along Gaza’s border with Egypt.