Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israeli troops will remain in Syrian territory indefinitely, and that blurs the border with Israel's northern neighbor.

Israel’s military has seized a strategic mountain top in its contested border area with Syria and advanced on positions beyond it, reshaping the frontier potentially for the long term.

Israel will hold on to swaths of land that formerly served as a buffer zone with Syria — with no plans for exiting the demilitarized region despite international outcry. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took a trip on Tuesday to Mount Hermon — the highest peak in the 155-square-mile chunk of land nabbed by the IDF

The buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights was created by the U.N. after the 1973 Mideast war. A

A journalists' association said Friday two reporters working for Kurdish media outlets have been killed in clashes between Syrian Kurdish militia and Turkish-backed fighters in northern Syria. Fighting in parts of Syria continues despite the fall of President Bashar Assad.

Israel is celebrating the fall of Assad because it breaks the noose that Iran had been patiently tightening around Israel’s borders in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Tehran’s pincer is now broken and rendered useless. From the point of view of Israel’s wider conflict with the Islamic Republic, the collapse of Assad’s regime is a strategic victory.