Israeli warplanes have intensified an air offensive in Syria, striking hundreds of military targets and destroying entire squadrons of fighters, radar and missile systems, missile stores and much of the small Syrian navy.
The strikes came as Israeli troops consolidated their hold on a demilitarised zone in Syria east of the occupied Golan Heights and seized a strip of mountainous territory extending northwards.
Images from the Mediterranean port of Latakia posted on social media and broadcast by local TV networks showed the charred wreckage of at least six warships sunk or badly damaged.
The Israeli airstrikes began in the hours after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime last weekend and have also targeted what Israel says are suspected chemical weapons and long-range rockets.
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said during a visit to a naval base in Haifa: “The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] has been operating in Syria in recent days to strike and destroy strategic capabilities that threaten the state of Israel. The navy operated … to destroy the Syrian fleet with great success.”
He said Israeli troops had been deployed to Syria to create a “sterile defence zone free of weapons and terrorist threats”.
On Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces were moving to control a roughly 155 sq mile (400 sq km) buffer zone in Syrian territory. Hours later, Israeli media reported that Israeli troops had established positions along the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, to the north of the Golan Heights.
An Israeli military official admitted on Tuesday that Israel had advanced beyond the buffer zone, saying its troops had seized “some other points”, but he denied reports of Israeli troops heading deeper into Syria.
“IDF forces are not advancing towards Damascus. This is not something we are doing or pursuing in any way,” Lt Col Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesperson, said at a briefing. The Syrian capital is 25 miles from Israeli troops’ positions.
“We are not involved in what’s happening in Syria internally, we are not a side in this conflict and we do not have any interest other than protecting our borders and the security of our citizens,” Shoshani said.
Israeli troops also now control a long stretch on the Syrian side facing Lebanon’s Rashaya region, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV, which has reporters in Syria. The new Israeli positions on the Syrian side of the 2,814-metre (9,000ft) Mount Hermon offer a prized vantage point.
Israel occupied much of the Golan Heights during the 1967 war. The buffer zone was established in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, which started when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel.
The Times of Israel reported that Israeli officials now considered void the agreement establishing the buffer zone, and that Israeli soldiers may end up holding their new positions inside Syria “for a long time, depending on the developments in the country”.
Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have condemned Israel’s incursion, accusing it of exploiting the disarray in Syria and violating international law.
Turkey’s foreign ministry said in a statement: “We strongly condemn Israel’s violation of the 1974 separation of forces agreement, its entry into the separation zone between Israel and Syria and its advance into Syrian territory.”
The ministry accused Israel of “displaying a mentality of an occupier” at a time when the possibility of peace and stability had emerged in Syria. The statement also reiterated Turkey’s support for Syria’s “sovereignty, political unity and territorial integrity”.
The UN’s special envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, told Israel that its airstrikes and ground invasion into Syrian territory had to stop and said its actions were in violation of the 1974 agreement.
A spokesperson for the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said: “We’re against these types of attacks. I think this is a turning point for Syria. It should not be used by its neighbours to encroach on the territory of Syria.”
The fall of the Assad regime has prompted a scramble for power, influence or other strategic advantages among regional powers hoping to exploit the chaos or seeking to head off potential dangers.
The White House spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday that US officials were in close contact with Israeli officials and Syrian opposition groups. He said Joe Biden was staying fully briefed by his national security team and that his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, was travelling to Israel on Wednesday.
Kirby said the US was not involved in any Israeli operations in Syria, and Israel had made clear these were “temporary measures to ensure their own security”. He said the US wanted to ensure that the Syrian people were able to determine their future and that there was a Syrian-led evolution toward “better and more representative governance”.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 six-day war and annexed it in 1981 in a move not recognised by the international community, except for the US.
The rest of the world views the strategically important plateau as occupied Syrian territory.
Israel had an uneasy but stable relationship with the Assad regime, with security officials broadly convinced that the authoritarian Syrian ruler had been deterred from any attacks on Israel.
A key objective of Israel is to deny Iran the opportunity to rebuild its influence in Syria after the fall of its key ally and to prevent any supplies sent by Tehran from reaching Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Islamist militant movement in Lebanon.
