The city of Khirbet Ghazala, in the province of Deraa, about 100 kilometers south of Damascus, the capital, witnessed a massive protest in which participants carried banners with phrases rejecting Israeli violations and called on the international community to stop the hostile Zionist attitude.
A similar demonstration took place in the town of Al-Soura, east of Deraa, where hundreds of residents denounced the attacks of the Israeli occupation and the statements of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatening the security of the southern region of Syria.
In the town of Douma, east of Damascus, dozens of people called for strengthening national unity and protested against continued Israeli violations.
These demonstrations came after Netanyahu’s statements, in which he threatened that Israel would not allow the presence of any Syrian forces or armed factions south of Damascus.
He affirmed the need to disarm the provinces of Quneitra, Daraa and Sweida, and assured that Israeli forces would remain in Mount Hermon and the buffer zone indefinitely.
Israeli forces, backed by tanks and bulldozers, had entered several towns in southwestern Syria today, while last Monday, Israeli air force carried out dozens of raids against military positions in the provinces of Deraa, Quneitra and Damascus-countryside.
Following the overthrow of the government of Bashar Al-Assad, Israel intensified its air strikes to destroy military infrastructure and its facilities.
It also expanded its occupation of the Syrian Golan by taking control of the demilitarized buffer zone as well as Mount Hermon and penetrating into the rural areas of Deraa and Quneitra.
The Syrian interim government called for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories it occupied for the past two months and expressed its readiness to fully cooperate with the United Nations and cover its positions on the border with the occupied Syrian Golan in accordance with the 1974 mandate.
Recently, satellite images showed the Israeli army establishing seven new military sites in border areas stretching from Mount Hermon, the country’s highest peak at 2,844 meters high, to Tel Qudna hill in the south, near the border triangle linking Syria, Jordan and Israel.
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