Satellite Images Show Israel Building Bases Inside Syria

Date: 04 February 2025 - 22:04

News ID: ۱۳۶۵۹۲

DOHA (Dispatches) -- Al Jazeera has published satellite images that show Israel is building out seven military bases within the demilitarized buffer zone with Syria following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad in December.
One of the bases is being built outside the buffer zone, inside Syrian territory. Israel’s incursions into Syria violate a 1974 truce that designated the area of the Golan Heights as a buffer zone.
The images were taken between December 19, 2024, just 11 days after Assad left the country, and February 1, 2025. They show six sites constructed in that time inside the buffer zone. Another is being constructed outside the buffer zone and inside Syrian territory, the network said.
The seven sites are located west of Hadar village, west of Jabata al-Khashab, north of Hamidyah, Quneitra village, south of Lake Aziz (two sites), and above Tal al-Ahmar.
Israel and Syria struck a ceasefire agreement in 1974 that determined the area, in the Golan Heights, would be a demilitarized buffer zone. But shortly after news emerged that the Syrian government had fallen, the Zionist military began moving within the buffer zone and entered Syrian territory that lies outside it.
That was despite Syria’s new ruler Abu Muhammad al-Julani making clear that his regime would recognize the 1974 agreement with Israel.
“Syria’s war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations,” he said on December 14, 2024. “The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction.”
However, Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the 1974 agreement was struck with a deposed government and was therefore invalid.
The new Syrian administration is largely made up of members of the now-dissolved Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a group that had links to Al-Qaeda.
Syrian citizens in and near the demilitarized zone have complained of Israeli encroachment
on their land as well as checkpoints, unauthorized arrests, housing raids, and road closures.
The occupying regime of Israel initially declared that the incursions would be temporary, but the building of bases brings that claim into question.
Instead, taken along with Israel’s assertion that it would remain on top of Jabal –al-Sheikh – which lies in Syria – indefinitely, and its track record of annexing the occupied Golan Heights, the Zionists could potentially be planning to stay in the newly-entered areas for the long haul.