Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Friday spoke on the phone with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about the situation in southern Syria and countering the Iranian presence there.
This was the second call between the two on the issue since Wednesday.
Earlier this week, Russia declared that all non-Syrian forces operating on the Syrian side of the Israel-Syria frontier should be removed.
Speaking at a press conference in Moscow on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov signaled that his country had accepted Israel’s long-time demand that Iranian forces not be allowed to operate near the Israeli frontier.
“Of course, the withdrawal of all non-Syrian forces must be carried out on a mutual basis, this should be a two-way street,” Lavrov added.
“The result of this work which should continue and is continuing should be a situation when representatives of the Syrian Arab Republic’s army stand at Syria’s border with Israel.”
On Thursday, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Iranian forces were preparing to withdraw from southern Syria, pulling back away from the Israeli border.
According to the organization, Iranian Revolutionary Guards forces and Iranian-backed Shiite groups, including the Hezbollah terror organization, are preparing for a mass-withdrawal from the border area.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)