Israeli Ground Forces Advance to Within 20km of Damascus: Calls Grow For Annexation

<p >An Israeli Army offensive into Syria spearheaded by Merkava battle tanks has reached within 20 kilometres of the capital Damascus, according to reports from a number of sources. Lebanese media outlets first reported that Israeli forces had entered several villages on the outskirts of Damascus, with Reuters the following day citing security sources to state that Israeli forces had reached near the Syrian capital. Israeli media outlets have also reported that the country’s ground forces have entered Syrian military bases 20 kilometres from Damascus. Advances by Israeli ground forces follow the <a href=" target="_blank">collapse of the Syrian Arab Army</a>, which has for over half a century positioned vast forces against Israel as the two states remained in conflict. Israel’s ground campaign was launched in parallel to a massive series of air strikes under Operation Bashan Arrow, which destroyed 320 abandoned Syrian Arab Army strategic sites singling out assets that had previously challenged Israeli military primacy – most notably fighter aircraft, ballistic and cruise missile depots, and air defence facilities. </p><p ><img src=" ></p><p >The advance of Israeli forces into Syria has been accompanied by growing calls by Israeli officials to annex significant parts of the Arab state’s territory into Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who <a href=" his country with playing a central role in Syria’s defeat, has said that the Syrian Golan Heights will remain part of Israel “for eternity.” Previously Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich cited the need to create a ‘Greater Israel’ that extended to and included the Syrian capital Damascus. 48 hours before the fall of Damascus, the Times of Israel <a href=" an assessment titled “Israel Needs Lebensraum,” a term coined in Nazi Germany to refer to plans to accommodate an expanding German population through ethnic cleansing of the Soviet Union and its settlement by ethnic Western Europeans. The timing of the publication has fuelled speculation that large parts of Syria could be intended to be integrated into Israel indefinitely. Israel has notably been far from isolated in seeking to expand into Syria, with Turkish-backed insurgents having raised the Turkish flag over the Syrian city of Aleppo, while nationalists within the current government have widely voiced calls for the annexation of the Syrian region into the country. </p><p >Israel and Turkey<a href=" target="_blank"> cooperated closely</a> in their <a href=" target="_blank">campaigns</a> against the Syrian state for over a decade, with a partitioning of the large majority of Syria between the two countries increasingly speculated to be the final result of its defeat. Syria’s highly prized oil rich eastern regions are currently in the hands of Western backed Kurdish paramilitary groups, which are expected to seek to maintain autonomy under a new Kurdish state. A consensus has thus steadily grown among analysts since December 8 that the previous internationally recognised borders of Syria will not be restored, and that there is a significant chance that the state’s very existence will come to an end. </p>