Syria’s interim president accuses Israel of fighting ‘ghosts’

Syria’s interim president has accused Israel of fighting “ghosts” and exporting its crises to other countries after the war in Gaza.President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s comments come amid persistent airstrikes and incursions by the Israeli military into southern Syria.Sharaa warned an international conference in Doha on Saturday that Syria has insisted on respecting a 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel “that has held for over 50 years – in one way or another it is a successful agreement”. Tampering with the deal “and seeking other agreements such as a demilitarised zone ... could lead us to a dangerous place with unknown consequences”.Israel’s forces pushed into a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the occupied Golan Heights after the fall of Bashar al-Assad a year ago and conduct regular incursions deeper into Syria. The level of insecurity for Syrians in the region south of Damascus is increasing.Since he took power a year ago, Sharaa insisted he has been sending “positive messages to Israel regarding regional peace and stability”.He also said Israel “extrapolates” its conflict with Hamas militants and justifies aggression in the name of security. “Israel has become a country that is in a fight against ghosts,” he said. “They justify everything using their security concerns and they take 7 October and extrapolate it to everything that has happened around them.” Israel had become a country that exports crises, he added.“Israel responded to Syria with extreme violence, launching more than 1,000 airstrikes and carrying out 400 incursions into its territory. The latest of these attacks was the massacre it committed in the town of Beit Jinn in the Damascus countryside, which claimed dozens of lives.”He said that Syria is working with “influential” countries to pressure Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. “There are negotiations with Israel, and the US is involved with us in these negotiations, and all countries support our demand for its withdrawal to the pre-8 December borders.”Donald Trump issued a warning last week to Israel to co-operate with the Syrian president, suggesting he does not welcome the Israeli incursions inside Syria.Sharaa said the demand for a demilitarised zone raised many questions for Syria, chiefly, “who will protect this zone if there is no presence of the Syrian army?”Israel says it fears terrorist groups linked to Hamas or Sharaa will invade Israel unless there is a firm buffer zone. Israel has seized the 400 sq km (155 sq miles) of demilitarised buffer zone in southern Syria.Sharaa, who has spent time in US jails inside Iraq, was given a rock-star welcome at the conference. He stressed that “any agreement must guarantee Syria’s interests, as it is Syria that is subjected to Israeli attacks”.Sharaa insisted “Syria is a developed country”, pointing to the recent People’s Assembly elections. The polls have been criticised as biased in favour of the country’s interim leaders.Sharaa said that they were conducted “in a manner that is appropriate for the transitional phase”, adding that “the people choosing who governs them is a fundamental principle”.“We do not link the building of Syria to individuals but to institutions, and this is the biggest challenge in the transitional phase that we are going through.”He promised full elections in four years, and said women had nothing to fear in Syria. It was the men that needed to worry, he said.