Syria’s de facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa has stated that his country is ready to welcome United Nations peacekeepers into the UN-established buffer zone with Israel.

He told reporters in Damascus that Israel’s advance in the region was due to the presence of Iranian militias and Hezbollah.

“After the liberation of Damascus, I believe that they have no presence at all. There are pretexts that Israel is using today to advance into the Syrian regions, into the buffer zone.

“Qatar no doubt has a big role to play. … They will play an active role in continuing to exercise pressure [on Israel to withdraw] together with Western and European nations and the United States of America.”
Ahmed al-Sharaa

Israel deployed military units last month to the buffer zone, which lies along the Golan Heights and separates Syria and Israel, after al-Assad was toppled by opposition fighters led by al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he ordered Israeli forces to grab a buffer zone in the Golan Heights – established by a 1974 ceasefire agreement with Syria – after a lightning advance by Syrian opposition forces ended Bashar al-Assad’s rule last month.

Speaking at a news conference in Damascus alongside de facto Syrian ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani criticised Israeli moves to occupy the territory near the Golan Heights in southern Syria.

He told Israel to “immediately withdraw” from its “buffer zone” with Syria as its Prime Minister visited Damascus after Israeli troops seized the area following Bashar al-Assad’s fall. “The Israeli occupation’s seizure of the buffer zone is a reckless … act and it must immediately withdraw,” Al Thani said.

Sheikh Mohammed pledged to support the rehabilitation of Syria’s infrastructure, devastated by nearly 14 years of civil war. “We will provide the necessary technical support to make the infrastructure operational again and provide support to the electricity sector,” he said, adding Qatar “extends its hand to our Syrian brothers for future partnerships.”

He also called for sanctions on Syria to be lifted and highlighted that “sanctions will have a negative impact on the support provided to Syria and the Syrian people.”

The US and European Union both imposed sanctions on al-Assad and his government for allegedly committing crimes during the war, which began after security forces cracked down on pro-democracy protesters in 2011.

This month, the US Department of the Treasury issued a general licence lasting six months that authorises certain transactions with the Syrian government, including some energy sales and incidental transactions.

The action does not remove any sanctions but will ensure they “do not impede activities to meet basic human needs, including the provision of public services or humanitarian assistance”, the Treasury Department said.

The EU has agreed to meet at the end of January to discuss lifting sanctions on Syria.

Israel Creating ‘New Reality On The Ground’ In Occupied Golan Heights

Meanwhile, Sultan Barakat, a public policy professor at the Qatar Foundation’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University, told a news agency that Israel’s expansion into the occupied Golan Heights after the toppling of Bashar al-Assad in Syria is designed to establish a new reality.

Barakat noted that it’s shifting the line for negotiations and political settlement into the future. He added, “It’s creating new realities on the ground and distracting people from what the real issue is.”

Barakat stressed that Israeli proposals for a buffer zone to be established in the occupied territory or a joint “park of peace” were disingenuous.

“All of these ideas are really designed to create a new reality on the ground and to grab more land and to create a negotiation position that is very different from what is legally recognised.”
Sultan Barakat