Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israeli troops will remain in Syrian territory indefinitely, blurring the border with Israel's northern neighbor.

Israel seized the mountainous region from Syria in 1967, and most of the world considers it occupied Syrian territory.

Israeli military vehicles ride through Syria close to the ceasefire line between Syria and Israel, as seen from Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, on Dec. 15.

Israel's wars in the Middle East are unlikely to end in 2025 or for that matter any time in the foreseeable future. The immediate reason for that is that Benjamin Netanyahu needs to prolong the ghastly war in Gaza to avoid standing trial at home on corruption charges which carry a prison sentence.

Israeli fighter jets have launched hundreds of airstrikes, while soldiers have seized a buffer zone and captured military posts in territory formerly under Syrian control.

Assad’s fall to bomb all the Syrian military assets it wanted to keep out of the rebels’ hands – striking nearly 500 targets, destroying the navy, and taking out, it claims, 90% of Syria’s known surface-to-air missiles.

Syria’s leadership isn’t the only aspect of the country to be changing as a result of this month’s toppling of longtime dictator, Bashar al-Assad. The blurring of its borders is also underway — from Israel to the southwest and Turkey to the north.

Israel is celebrating the fall of Assad because it breaks the noose that Iran had been patiently tightening around Israel’s borders in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Tehran’s pincer is now broken and rendered useless. From the point of view of Israel’s wider conflict with the Islamic Republic, the collapse of Assad’s regime is a strategic victory.

The Israeli military hit weapons depots and air defenses, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Israel has said it aims to keep military equipment away from extremists.

Lebanon said on Thursday it was looking forward to having the best neighbourly relations with Syria, in its first official message to the new administration in Damascus.

Israel rejected Turkish accusations on Tuesday following Ankara’s condemnation of Israeli military actions in Syria, as Turkey escalates its own operations in the war-torn country. The rising tensions have deepened the rift between the two nations and ...