On Sunday, Israel announced that its military had entered the demilitarized buffer zone. The country then referred to the fact that Syrian forces had "left their posts" and that a 50-year-old agreement on the demilitarized zone was therefore no longer valid.
This is a limited and temporary step we have taken for security reasons, says Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar at a press conference on Monday.
The zone between Israel and Syria is located on Syrian territory in the country's southwestern corner, east of the Golan Heights occupied by Israel. It is separated by the so-called Alpha line along the Israeli border and the Bravo line on the Syrian side.
A large part of the Golan Heights was occupied by Israel in connection with the war in 1967 and the buffer zone was created under UN mandate in 1974.
