Tel Aviv targeting more areas in southern Syria while lobbying world powers to keep central government in Damascus weak, according to Wall Street Journal

AIPAC and AJC are taking a cautiously hopeful approach to the new government in Damascus, while Israel is growing increasingly alarmed by the regime

The Israeli military is targeting more areas of southern Syria, and Israel is lobbying world powers to keep the central government in Damascus weak.

We don’t go out at night any more because of them.” The vehicles belong neither to the new rulers in Damascus, nor any of the country’s myriad armed factions, but to their neighbour: Israel. Since Islamist rebels led by Ahmed al-Sharaa toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December,

The latest attacks came a week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel demanded the demilitarization of much of southern Syria, stoking fears of conflict with the country’s new leadership.

Following last week’s strikes just south of Damascus, Israel’s military said it conducted another round of strikes on Monday on military targets in northwestern Syria.

Claiming that the suburb 3km southeast of Damascus is a Druze city under threat, Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Israel Katz instructed their troops to “prepare to defend” Jaramana. “We will not allow the extreme Islamic regime in Syria to harm the Druze. If the regime harms the Druze, it will be struck by us,” Katz said on Saturday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will not allow Syria’s new army or the insurgent group that led the ouster of former President Bashar Assad to “enter the area south of Damascus”

PM Netanyahu has demanded the ‘full demilitarisation’ of southern Syria, where Israel has illegally expanded its forces.