Damascus Condemns Netanyahu’s Visit to ‘Syria Buffer Zone’ in Golan Heights

The Qatari Foreign Ministry issued condemnations on Thursday for three separate incidents earlier in the week.

First, the Foreign Ministry said that Qatar “condemns the entry of the Israeli occupation’s Prime Minister, along with several ministers and officials from the occupation government, into the occupied Syrian territories. Qatar considers this a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the sisterly Syrian Arab Republic, a flagrant breach of international law, and a serious threat to regional security.”

The statement then “called on the international community to take urgent action to comply with international legitimacy, particularly the 1974 cease-fire agreement, and to halt its repeated aggressions against Syrian territory in order to prevent further escalation and tension in the region.”

The statement was responding to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by Defense Minister Israel Katz, IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir and other senior officials’ visit to the Syrian buffer zone in the Golan Heights on Wednesday, after requesting to cancel a hearing in his criminal trial for “security matters.”

The Foreign Ministry then condemned the Israeli airstrike that targeted the Ein al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp on Tuesday which killed 13 people and wounded 9 others, affirming “that this airstrike constitutes a brutal assault on the unarmed Palestinian people and a violation of the sovereignty of the sisterly Lebanese Republic, as well as a flagrant breach of international laws and conventions.” The statement stressed “the urgent need for the international community to act swiftly to hal Israel’s dangerous attacks.”

The Israeli army said that it struck militants operating in a “Hamas training compound” in the Ein El-Hilweh refugee camp in the country’s south. It alleged that the compound was “used by Hamas terrorists for training and exercises in order to plan and carry out terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel.”

Lastly, in reference to continued Israeli strikes on Gaza, it condemned “the brutal attacks carried out by the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip, which have resulted in martyrs and injuries, and considers them a dangerous escalation that threatens to undermine the cease-fire agreement in the Strip,” and “affirmed the need for concerted regional and international efforts to preserve and uphold the cease-fire.”

It also expressed Qatar’s “firm and unwavering position in supporting the Palestinian cause… based on interational legitimacy and the two-state solution.”