Israel Deploys Forces In Golan Heights Buffer Zone Amid Syrian Regime Change And Border Threats

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:12]As tensions in West Asia continue, I'm right now at the Israel-Syria border.

[00:00:18]I'm at the Golan Heights, which happens to be a strategically important demography. On my right, you can see the Syrian border. And this is the place which has been quite relevant for Israel as it has its deployments in this area.

[00:00:35]As a preemptive defense, it has been placing its forces in last 1 year in this area which used to be one of the demilitarized zone in this belt. I'm right now at Israeli Golan Heights and the Syrian Golan Heights are very much visible from here. Damascus is around 35 km and we also see the deployments of the United Nations in this whole area.

[00:01:00]Since last 1 year, since the regime change in Syria, this place has once again became active because Israel has been saying that there are threats to its territory in this region, too.

[00:01:12]So, it's needs it needs to deploy forces in this area and where I'm walking right now happens to be one of the old military bases of Israeli Defense Forces in the 1970s.

[00:01:24]After the 1967 Six-Day War, this was vacated but still remains quite relevant. I have with me David, who's not only a local tourist guide, but he is the expert on strategy. We'll speak to him. David, what is the significance of this place right now we are standing at Golan Heights in Israel?

[00:01:47]>> Well, right where we're standing on Mount Bental, it's quite clear. You look around you in all directions. We're high up.

[00:01:55]We control from this spot right here.

[00:01:57]You can see far into Syria. And if you look on the other side, and you can see over there as well, you see the upper Galilee, Israel's Galilee. Now, what happened up until 1967, during those 19 years between '48 and '67, down here was the Galilee, up here was the Golan Heights, and Syrian forces were standing up here, and they were often shooting and and shooting and mortars being shot at Israeli farmers in the valley down below. That became untenable, and in the Six-Day War, we didn't know it was going to be six days at the at the time.

[00:02:34]>> Right.

[00:02:34]>> Uh we were able to actually, amongst other things, capture the Golan Heights, where we're standing today.

[00:02:43]The Golan Heights, right now you can see we're right along the border. If you look at that line right there, that black line coming down towards us, >> Yes.

[00:02:51]>> going towards the white buildings, >> Got it.

[00:02:53]>> those white buildings are actually the United Nations headquarters. That's the border. To the left of that line, Syria. To the right, Israel. Now, come across this way, and you see that little pond over there, that white pond?

[00:03:08]That is on the Israeli side. On the other side, you see some old buildings.

[00:03:12]That's already Syria. That's old Quneitra. And then you follow that line going up to the left, a little farther away, and then around.

[00:03:20]That's the border. That's where we are right now. We're on the border of Syria.

[00:03:25]It's important for you to see it with your own eyes, so you can understand why we need to be up here.

[00:03:30]In that direction, it's around 40 km plus the outskirts of Damascus, right over in that direction over there.

[00:03:38]And behind these people, which we can see, but is is the Hermon Mount is the Hermon mountain range.

[00:03:46]And as a result, from the Hermon, which are what we call the eyes of Israel, which were able to look from up top over there. It's only about 7% of the Golan Heights.

[00:03:58]Most of the Golan Most of the Hermon mountain range, it's only about 7% of the Hermon mountain range. Most of the Hermon mountain range is actually still in Syria.

[00:04:07]We have no desires to be in those areas.

[00:04:09]What we did when the Bashar regime took over from the Bashar regime, the Assad regime, we we we didn't need ISIS on our border.

[00:04:21]We knew that they were coming and and if you remember, it was only in a couple of days.

[00:04:26]So, we quickly decided for defensive purposes preemptively to move into a number of areas.

[00:04:32]And we've been there and it's a good thing we did because we saw later on what that regime did to the Druze living in Syria where they attacked them.

[00:04:43]A- Suwayda, which we know of the massacre of Suwayda. Suwayda is in that direction over there. But, uh Khader, another Druze town, just next to Majdal Shams. Khader in Syria.

[00:04:55]>> David, I would like to ask you that Israel is already active on multiple fronts. Be the war with Iran with in Gaza against Hamas, in Lebanon against the Hezbollah. Why this front you see suddenly getting active? Is there a threat from the ISIS right now?

[00:05:12]>> Of course there's a threat.

[00:05:14]We don't know yet if Julani is a peaceful Julani or if he's what he used to be, an ISIS Julani. We don't know what it is and as a result, we need to be we need to be careful with what we're doing. We need to make sure that we're not caught and therefore that's why we moved into defensive positions over there.

[00:05:33]>> So, if if I talk about last 1 year since the regime change has happened in Syria, have the IDF forces moved ahead on onto the locations they're deployed right now?

[00:05:44]>> Primarily within the Syrian part of the buffer zone in the demarcation agreement, we moved into a number of places. So, we're we are there.

[00:05:52]We're not there forever. We plan to move back as soon as things clear up.

[00:05:57]>> But still amid this West Asia crisis, when Israel is still waiting for things to develop and the situation is being watched, you see that these positions are at a high alert and they will remain here until the the whole thing comes to an end and the ceasefire is >> We need to be alert and we need to and all of our borders. What happened on the 7th of October?

[00:06:22]What happened on the was was we weren't alert like we should have been.

[00:06:26]When they attacked us on the 8th of October in '23, we were ready already because we had already moved enough forces up.

[00:06:34]And thank God we did that.

[00:06:35]And we're being alert here on this border.

[00:06:38]And as unfortunately, we've seen with our with our war against the Iran as well or their war against us, we're being alert there and we're actually we we've we we understand that we can no longer act according to what we think that our enemies might be able to do. We have to act according to what we know they can do. That is the main lesson learned from Gaza from Gaza.

[00:07:00]>> last question. In recent months, have we seen some action some attacks here from Hezbollah or from ISIS or any organizations of such >> Hezbollah Hezbollah was shooting into the Golan as well and we know those 12 children in Majdal Shams that were killed on the football pitch.

[00:07:18]They were a result of a rocket a missile shot into Majdal Shams from Hezbollah.

[00:07:26]Hezbollah shot other missiles in this area. Primarily, missiles were shot a not so much, but there are other things. Iran even shot towards this area as well.

[00:07:38]They were intercepted. There have been little little skirmishes, not skirmishes, but fighting, but whenever whenever shooting shooting is done here, we make it clear to the uh we make it clear to the regime they need to move back.

[00:07:56]>> Thank you so much for speaking to us and giving us the perspective that here in Golan Heights in Israel the idea of continues to take its position because the threat is fresh and imminent as the Israelis claim because this border has seen a lot of active missile fires, rockets in last few months when the Iran-Israel war was on and 12 children had lost their life in this place in Hezbollah rocket fires.