Israel ‘not moving toward peace’ with Syria, defense minister says

By Abdel Raouf Arnaout and Betul Yilmaz

JERUSALEM / ISTANBUL (AA) – Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Tel Aviv is not on a path toward peace with Damascus, claiming that the Yemeni Houthi group is active in Syria.

“Israel is not moving toward peace with Syria because there are forces within its borders thinking about invading Golan towns,” Katz claimed during a closed session of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Wednesday.

He claimed that Houthis are allegedly operating in Syria, accusing the Yemeni group of planning what he called a “ground invasion” of northern Israel.

“Another matter that concerns Israeli officials is the Druze community in Syria,” he said in his comments cited by the public broadcaster KAN on Thursday.

The Israeli army is ready to “intervene once again, including by closing the border” in case of any incident in southern Syria, he threatened.

There was no comment from Syrian authorities or the Houthi group on the Israeli minister’s statements.

Syrian authorities have repeatedly affirmed that they guarantee equal rights to all sects in the country and accused Israel of using the Druze as a pretext to interfere in the country’s internal affairs.

In recent months, Israeli-Syrian meetings have been held in a bid to reach security arrangements that would ensure Israel’s withdrawal from the Syrian buffer zone, which it occupied in December 2024.

After the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in late 2024, Israel expanded its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights by seizing the demilitarized buffer zone, a move that violated the 1974 Disengagement Agreement with Syria.

Government data showed that the Israeli army has carried out over 1,000 airstrikes on Syria and more than 400 cross-border raids into the southern provinces since December 2024.