Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will not allow Syria’s new army or the insurgent group that led the ouster of former President Bashar Assad to “enter the area south of Damascus” as his government made clear Israeli forces would stay in parts of southern Syria for an indefinite period.

In an address Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Syria’s new rulers should demilitarize the Quneitra, Daraa and Suwayda provinces.

The Lebanese militant group is grappling with a stunning reversal of fortune after its war with Israel and the ouster of its Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad.

Israel is lobbying the United States to keep Syria weak and decentralised, including by letting Russia keep its military bases there to counter Turkey's growing influence in the country, four sources familiar with the efforts said.

The source added that such an allegation is a lie made up by Israel "to cover up its plans regarding Syria after the fall of the Assad regime."

Thousands of Jews left Syria in 1992, when they were allowed to emigrate. The visit by a small delegation of U.S.-based Syrian Jewish religious figures last week was their first time back since then.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will not allow Syria’s new army or the insurgent group that led the ouster of former President Bashar Assad to “enter the area south of Damascus”

Israel carried out airstrikes late Tuesday on several locations in the Damascus countryside and Daraa province in southern Syria. Israeli warplanes targeted the Al-Kiswah area south of Damascus and Izraa in Daraa with at least four airstrikes, according to an Anadolu correspondent.

Assad, Israel launches more attacks, disrupting the national dialogue and asserting control over southern Syria as part of a regional escalation.

The Israeli army said it carried out air strikes targeting military sites containing weapons in southern Syria on Tuesday, just days after