The Israel Defense Forces has announced it will reinforce armored and artillery units near the border with Syria as Russian-backed government forces continue their campaign to recover territory in the southwest of the country from rebel fighters.
The assessment in Israel is that as soon as Assad defeats the rebels in Daraa province, his forces will focus their efforts on opposition fighters situated directly on Syria's border with the Israeli Golan Heights.
Through the deployment of reinforcements, Israel wants to send a warning to the Syrian regime not to use fighting in the area as a precedent to enter the demilitarized area set up in the 1974 Israel-Syria Disengagement Agreement.
According to Lebanese media outlets, Hezbollah conveyed a message to Israel via a third party that Hezbollah would respond to any Israeli campaign against the Syrian army in the Golan Heights. Hezbollah warned they would launch a barrage of missiles at Israel and all of Israel would be a target.
The challenge facing the Israeli security establishment is how to continue its non-intervention policy in Syria while at the same time, preventing the mass entry of refugees into Israel.
Israel is also continuing with Operation Good Neighbor, a comprehensive program designed to aid Syrian civilians harmed by their country's civil war that it says has provided tons of food, medicine, clothing and infrastructure to Syrian civilians over the past year. In recent days, the IDF has and is continuing to provide extensive humanitarian assistance to Syrians fleeing to encampments in the Syrian Golan Heights.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commented on the matter at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.
"Regarding southern Syria, we will continue to defend our borders. We will extend humanitarian assistance to the extent of our abilities. We will not allow entry into our territory and we will demand that the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement with the Syrian army be strictly upheld.
Netanyahu noted he was in ongoing contact with the White House and the Kremlin and that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot and Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman were also in similar contact with their American and Russian counterparts.
Meanwhile, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said he would hold formal talks aimed at reaching a cease-fire agreement in southwestern Syria with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday.
Noting Russia would be a main party to any solution, Safadi said the talks would focus on creating "conditions on the ground under which people will feel safe" to return to their towns and villages.
He said he was confident his meeting with Lavrov would produce more understandings and lead to "more steps forward to contain this crisis and prevent more destruction."
Jordan, which hosts about 650,000 registered Syrian refugees, according to the United Nations, has grown increasingly worried a prolonged military campaign could trigger a humanitarian catastrophe. Amman has said it would not allow further refugees to enter its territory. While Jordan is under increasing public pressure to ease restrictions on the entry of refugees, Safadi said, "We believe that it is in nobody's interest to have Syrians depart their country."
Instead, Safadi said Jordan was delivering aid to the displaced and had set up field hospitals near the border.
Thousands of Syrians have already fled further south and taken shelter close to Jordan's border crossing with Syria, where the Jordanian army has in the last few days begun sending aid.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday's fighting was concentrated near the villages of Tafas and Nawa. It added that 123 civilians have been killed in the past two weeks of fighting.
Opposition activist collective Nabaa Media said thousands of people had fled Tafas for the border with Israel as result of the campaign.
Arab media outlets reported that opposition representatives had abandoned talks with a Russian-Syrian delegation aimed at achieving a cease-fire for Daraa province after they said Russia had refused to meet any of their demands. The rebels had wanted Russian military police to play a role in peacekeeping efforts.
