BEIRUT: Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said on Saturday that Syria’s new rulers, who ousted the Lebanese armed group’s ally Bashar al-Assad, should not recognise neighbouring Israel or establish ties with it.

“We hope that this new party in power will see Israel as an enemy and not normalise relations with it,” Qassem said in a televised speech, his first public remarks since Islamist-led rebels toppled Assad following an offensive launched on Nov 27, the same day that a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect.

The leader of the Islamist-led rebels who seized power in Damascus criticised Israel on Saturday for its incursion into southern Syria this week but said his country was too exhausted for fresh conflict.

Israeli troops entered the UN-patrolled buffer zone that separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights last weekend in a move the United Nations said violated the 1974 armistice agreement.

“The Israelis have clearly crossed the disengagement line in Syria, which threatens a new unjustified escalation in the region,” said the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who is now using his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa.

But he added in a statement on the rebels’ Telegram channel that “the general exhaustion in Syria after years of war and conflict does not allow us to enter new conflicts.”

Israel, which has occupied most of the strategic plateau since 1974, said it acted in self-defence in the face of the political uncertainty in its northeastern neighbour.

Since the overthrow of president Bashar al-Assad by HTS-led forces on Sunday, Israel has also carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syrian military assets, according to a war monitor.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz has been destroying “strategic capabilities that threaten the State of Israel.”

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2024