Israeli construction along buffer zone with Syria violates ceasefire, UN says

The AoS was set up as part of Israel’s ceasefire agreement with Syria in 1974, following Israel’s earlier occupation of the Golan Heights.

Israeli forces are required to be west of the so-called Alpha Line, while Syrian forces must be east of the Bravo Line, which runs along the other side of the AoS.

Israel unilaterally annexed the Golan in 1981. The move was not recognised internationally, although the US did so unilaterally in 2019.

Israeli settlers there live alongside about 20,000 Syrians, most of them Druze, who stayed on in the Golan after it was captured.

Despite the presence of Iran-backed militia groups in Syria, this frontier has remained relatively calm, as Israeli ground forces have battled Iranian allies in Gaza and Lebanon over the past 13 months.

But UNDOF said in a statement that the Syrian authorities had “strongly protested” the ongoing Israeli work. And that the UN itself had “repeatedly” taken its concerns over the Israeli violations to Israel’s military authorities.

Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) spokesman Lt Col Nadav Shoshani told the BBC that the trenches were designed to protect against infiltration by Iran-backed groups in Syria – and did not break the ceasefire agreement.

“Israeli officials have been communicating with the UN about these issues,” he said. “And I can tell you that the IDF is operating on Israeli territory making sure that a terror invasion is not possible, making sure we are defending our borders.”