Israel’s military has seized a strategic mountain top in its contested border area with Syria and advanced on positions beyond it, reshaping the frontier potentially for the long term.

Qaeda spin-off HTS will come in two flavours only. Either submit and collude like the West Bank, or end up wrecked like Gaza There has been a flurry of “What next for Syria?” articles in the wake of dictator Bashar al-Assad’s hurried exit from Syria and the takeover of much of the country by al-Qaeda’s rebranded local forces.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Tice's mother his country won't conduct airstrikes near a secret prison outside Damascus.

Israel is celebrating the fall of Assad because it breaks the noose that Iran had been patiently tightening around Israel’s borders in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Tehran’s pincer is now broken and rendered useless. From the point of view of Israel’s wider conflict with the Islamic Republic, the collapse of Assad’s regime is a strategic victory.

Israeli troops will remain in Syria slightly beyond a buffer zone -- created by the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement -- for "strategic reasons," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement Thursday.

The buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights was created by the U.N. after the 1973 Mideast war. A

Assad’s fall to bomb all the Syrian military assets it wanted to keep out of the rebels’ hands – striking nearly 500 targets, destroying the navy, and taking out, it claims, 90% of Syria’s known surface-to-air missiles.

The Israeli military hit weapons depots and air defenses, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Israel has said it aims to keep military equipment away from extremists.

More than four decades later, the entire international community - bar the US and Israel - considers the Golan Heights to be Syrian territory under Israeli occupation. In 2019, the US recognised the Golan Heights as Israeli sovereign territory during Donald Trump’s first term – becoming the only state to do so.

Israel has paved the way for a decisive strike against Iran’s nuclear programme by eliminating swathes of Syria’s military infrastructure, according to officials speaking to The Telegraph following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Israel says the move is necessary following the takeover of neighbouring Syria by an Islamist-led rebel alliance.