Addressing a gathering of Israeli diplomats and foreign ministry bureaucrats, Netanyahu doubled down on the regime's refusal to vacate areas grabbed after the Syrian power shift on Dec. 8, 2024.
"We want to preserve these assets," he insisted, brazenly claiming entitlement to Jabal al-Sheikh and the adjacent buffer zone next to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which the regime has unlawfully controlled since 1967.
Netanyahu dangled the prospect of a deal with Damascus, but only on the regime's terms: full demilitarization of southern Syria to safeguard its aggressive expansion.
The Israeli military's onslaught on Syrian soil ramped up after the Assad’s fall, with forces methodically demolishing leftover military sites and brazenly widening the occupation across the Golan Heights.
Israeli troops stormed the buffer zone abutting the Golan, thrusting forward to just 25 km (15.5 miles) from Damascus in a flagrant violation of sovereignty.
The regime has squatted on Syria's Golan Heights since plundering it in the 1967 war, in direct defiance of international law.
A 1974 disengagement pact had carved out UN-supervised buffer and demilitarized strips along the border, now shredded by Israeli aggression.
In a stark rebuke to the regime's land grab, the UN General Assembly on Dec. 2 overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Golan to the June 4, 1967 lines, with 123 votes in favor, seven against—including the regime and its US backer—and 41 abstentions.
The assembly branded the regime's 1981 annexation "null and void," slamming it as a "stumbling block" to regional peace, echoing UN Security Council Resolution 497's unanimous condemnation.
Syria's Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani has made clear there will be no pact with the Israeli regime until it pulls out entirely from Syrian soil.
Meanwhile, US special envoy Tom Barrack's recent Damascus visits to hash out Syria-Israel ties have hit a wall, thwarted by Netanyahu's intransigence on relinquishing the pilfered buffer zones.
In a related escalation, the regime greenlit plans last December to balloon Golan settlements, aiming to double the settler population in the illegally held plateau, further entrenching its colonial footprint.
Critics, including voices on social media, lambast Netanyahu as a serial liar, condemning the regime for serial border pretexts—from the Golan to southern Lebanon—now eyeing Damascus under the guise of "security."