AMMAN (Dispatches) -- Israeli war minister Israel Katz declared that Zionist forces will not withdraw from Mount Hermon (Jabal al-Sheikh) or the Syrian buffer zone as long as “threats” persist, delivering a defiant message during an illegal visit to occupied Syrian territory.
“We will not leave Mount Hermon or the security zone,” Katz said, according to a statement from his office. 
Addressing Syria’s de facto president Abu Muhammad al-Jolani directly, he added: “The message to the president of Syria is clear — when you wake up in the morning in the palace in Damascus and look up at Mount Hermon and see the IDF, you know that we are here to defend our communities and our border.”
Syria’s foreign ministry condemned Katz’s entry as a “flagrant violation of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” and urged the international community to force Israel to halt its violations. Qatar also condemned the visit, calling it a breach of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement.
The terrorist war minister’s remarks came as Israeli forces continue daily ground operations and airstrikes across southern Syria. 
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Israel has unilaterally voided the 1974 disengagement agreement, seized Jabal al-Sheikh, and established military outposts deep inside the buffer zone and beyond.
Inside Syria, the occupation is reshaping daily life. Israeli forces conduct night raids, detain suspects, and regulate access to agricultural fields through temporary UN identification cards. 
In Quneitra province, farmers must carry special permits to work their land between 6 a.m. and 5 p.m., and must not remain out past sunset. Residents report Israeli patrols, home searches, and demolitions of infrastructure.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented seven Israeli ground incursions across Daraa and Quneitra within 24 hours on Monday alone, with over 60 military violations recorded between August 15 and 21. 
These included land-leveling, surveillance camera installations, and checkpoint deployments.
The Israeli invasion and occupation of southern Syria come just days after the Trump administration formally removed Syria from the State Sponsor of Terrorism blacklist, and delisted Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham — the former Al-Qaeda affiliate led by Jolani — from its terrorist designation.
Critics have noted the stark contradiction: Washington has embraced Syria’s new leadership — whose leader Jolani, once headed an Al-Qaeda offshoot — while Israel continues to bomb and occupy Syrian territory. 
Syrian analyst Ahmad al-Kinani said Israel is “exercising direct security control over the southern region, carrying out direct assassinations and field executions” without coordination with any joint mechanism.