MK Motti Yogev (Jewish Home), a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, on Sunday discussed the Israeli military activity on the northern border.
"Israel is in a difficult dilemma regarding the residents living in villages adjacent to the security fence in the Golan Heights. The connection with them in recent years has been humanitarian and useful. The connection with them, with Assad growing stronger, creates many dilemmas,” Yogev said in an interview on the Be’er Sheva-based Radio Darom.
"The guiding principle set by the defense minister, the defense establishment and the cabinet is that we will not allow passage to Israel, but we will try to help with humanitarian aid," Yogev added.
"We have a primary obligation to protect our citizens. We have to act first and foremost on the diplomatic side, to create good neighborliness that the Russians and the Americans are backing,” he concluded.
About 120,000 Syrian civilians have been displaced following a military operation by the Assad regime in the Daraa region of southern Syria. Roughly half of those refugees are said to be making their way towards the Golan Heights, while the remaining 60,000 have clustered along the Jordanian border.
While a senior Israeli official said Thursday evening that Israel would not accept Syrian refugees, the IDF did provide large quantities of food, medicine, and clothing to the refugees in a transfer overnight.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu related to the situation in southern Syria and said, “We will continue to defend our borders. We will extend humanitarian assistance to the extent of our abilities. We will not allow entry into our territory and we will demand that the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement with the Syrian army be strictly upheld.”