WATCH: IDF Paratroopers Enter Syria

‘The combat team of the paratroopers and other forces are conducting ‘forward defense’ in the area to prevent any threat,’ the army said.

By United with Israel and JNS

The IDF on Monday published footage of IDF paratroopers entering Syria, following the collapse of the Assad regime.

“The combat team of the paratroopers and other forces are conducting ‘forward defense’ in the area to prevent any threat, and are deployed in the buffer zone at strategic points,” the army said.

The IDF noted that forces of the 210th Division on Sunday night “began proactive operations to ensure the protection of Golan residents, in light of internal events in Syria.”

In addition, IDF infantry, armored and engineering units have been deployed along the northern border with Syria.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has ordered the Israel Defense Forces to create a secure area free of “heavy strategic weapons and terror infrastructure” beyond the buffer zone with Syria, the Defense Ministry said Monday.

Katz said he had instructed the IDF to establish full control over the demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights, which was established by the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Damascus and Jerusalem and ended the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Katz also ordered the continued destruction of strategic weapons that were previously held by the regime and Iranian-backed militias to prevent their falling into the hands of terrorist forces. Among these weapons are “surface-to-air missiles, air defense systems, surface-to-surface missiles, cruise missiles, long-range rockets and coast-to-sea missiles,” according to the ministry.

Katz has also instructed the army to “prevent and thwart the renewal of the arms smuggling route from Iran to Lebanon through Syria, in Syrian territory and at border crossing points.”

Lastly, Katz said he had asked the military to attempt to establish contacts with Syria’s Druze community and other local populations.