The strikes came after Druze clerics and armed factions reaffirmed their loyalty to Damascus. They urged the new authorities to appoint local officials to government posts in Sweida province, heartland of the Druze religious group.
Their statement followed fighting between Druze fighters and Syrian forces, including government-affiliated groups that killed more than 100 people in Jaramana and Sahnaya near Damascus and in Sweida, the Observatory said.
The same day al-Assad was ousted, Israel announced that its troops were entering a UN-patrolled buffer zone that has separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the strategic Golan Heights since 1974.
Israel seized much of the Golan Heights from Syria in a war in 1967, later annexing the area in a move largely unrecognized by the international community.
Netanyahu said that Israeli forces will remain in the buffer zone “for an indefinite period to protect our communities and thwart any threat.”
„We will not allow forces of the HTS or the new Syrian army to enter the territory south of Damascus. We demand full demilitarization of southern Syria, in the provinces of Quneitra, Daraa and Sweida,“ Netanyahu said at a military graduation ceremony.