STRIKES
While Syrians were celebrating Assad’s ouster, the Israeli military said it had conducted hundreds of strikes on Syria over the past two days.
Pedersen, the UN special envoy, called on Israel to stop.
“We are continuing to see Israeli movements and bombardments into Syrian territory. This needs to stop,” he said.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Syria’s new rulers that he would respond “forcefully” if they allow “Iran to re-establish itself in Syria, or permits the transfer of Iranian weapons or any other weapons to Hezbollah”.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah meanwhile said it hoped that Syria’s new rulers would “take a firm stand against Israeli occupation, while preventing foreign interference in its affairs”.
The Britain-based Observatory said Israeli strikes had “destroyed the most important military sites in Syria”.
The monitor said the strikes targeted weapons depots, naval vessels and a research centre that Western governments suspected of having links to chemical weapons production.
Israel, which borders Syria, also sent troops into the UN-patrolled buffer zone east of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
The UN official in New York told AFP late on Tuesday that Israeli forces were occupying seven locations in the buffer zone.
Israel backer the United States said the incursion must be “temporary”, after the United Nations said Israel was violating the 1974 armistice.
The Israeli defence minister said the military had orders to “establish a sterile defence zone free of weapons and terrorist threats in southern Syria, without a permanent Israeli presence”.
Fighting also continued in the north of the country, where battles between Turkish-backed and Kurdish-led forces left 218 people dead over the last three days, according to the Observatory.
