IDF meets Syrian Druze leaders after call to join Israel

Israeli army officers have held their first meetings with the leaders of Syrian villages captured in the Golan in recent days, following the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime last week.

This comes after Druze residents of Syria's Hader, near the Israeli border in southern Syria, called for Israel to annex the town like it did the Golan Heights. "What is our fate?" asked a speaker in a video seen on social media over the weekend. The crowd responded: "Israel."

"On behalf of all in Hader, if we must choose, we choose the lesser evil. We want to be annexed to the Israeli Golan to preserve our dignity," the speaker added.

Over the weekend, IDF officers openly met with village elders in their homes to reassure them about their safety and the continuity of their daily lives in Quneitra, a district partially within the buffer zone.

Captain Omer, company commander of the 77th battalion of the 7th armored brigade, reached the furthest point of the IDF's advance into Syria, the village of Umm Batnah, located about seven miles from the border.

"I asked the village chief to collect the residents' weapons after they had taken rifles from abandoned Syrian military outposts," said the officer.

The leader of the Syrian rebels, Ahmad al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Julani, addressed Israel for the first time on Saturday, rejecting the country's involvement in Syria. "Syria needs laws and state institutions. We have a plan to deal with all crises. We do not enter into conflict with Israel," he said.

The Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, General Herzi Halevi, has rejected these claims, emphasizing that "we do not interfere in what is happening inside Syria, nor do we have the intention of governing it. However, we are unequivocally involved in the security of Israeli citizens living in communities behind us in the Golan."