Qatar’s PM calls on Israeli forces to withdraw from Syria buffer zone

Sheikh Mohammed also promises to support the new administration and the rehabilitation of Syria’s infrastructure.

Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, has demanded that Israel “immediately withdraw” its forces from the United Nations-established buffer zone with Syria after Israeli troops entered the area following the removal of Syria’s longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.

Speaking on Thursday at a news conference in Damascus alongside de facto Syrian ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa, Sheikh Mohammed criticised Israeli moves to occupy the territory near the Golan Heights in southern Syria.

“The Israeli occupation’s seizure of the buffer zone is a reckless … act, and it must immediately withdraw,” Sheikh Mohammed said.

Israel deployed military units last month to the buffer zone, which lies along the Golan Heights and separates Syria and Israel, after al-Assad was toppled by opposition fighters led by al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group. The area has been an officially designated demilitarised zone as part of a 1974 UN-brokered ceasefire.

As its troops encroached on the area, Israel also launched hundreds of air strikes across Syria. It said its air attacks were part of a campaign to stop weapons from landing in the hands of “extremists”, a term it has applied to several groups in Syria, including HTS.