Senior officers in a dramatic statement: "No longer exists"

Senior officers addressed the change in the Middle East during a meeting with military correspondents, following the fall of Syrian President Assad's regime, and declared that the Iran-Syria-Lebanon axis no longer exists.

According to the report by Galatz journalist Doron Kadosh, the officers declared that "the Tehran – Damascus – Beirut axis is no longer, it doesn't exist anymore." Iran's proxies are very, very weak, and that changes the picture."

The officers emphasized that "we are not just monitoring from a distance, but also acting and initiating in the Syrian territory because there has been an approach of armed individuals to the border." Syria is an uncontrolled area, there are uncontrolled armed groups there, and we don't know what kind of weaponry is circulating in the region.

The officers reported that "gunmen attempted to attack UN outposts and steal weapons from there." We recommended to the political echelon – we need to manage risks wisely, and therefore we are operating in the buffer zone and temporarily seizing controlling areas to improve defense and prevent unidentified armed individuals from approaching Israeli territory. "This is not an operation that will last only a few hours, but rather longer – but solely for defensive purposes."

Regarding the IDF spokesperson's message in Arabic to the residents of villages in Syria, the officers clarified that "the message delivered to the villages in southern Syria is that we do not want to accidentally harm Syrian civilians."