The Israeli military is targeting more areas of southern Syria, and Israel is lobbying world powers to keep the central government in Damascus weak.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out airstrikes in southern Syria on February 25 after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said that southern Syria must be a demilitarized zone.

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”

A Bibas family member calls on Israeli officials to take responsibility for the deaths of hostages in Hamas captivity. Also: life in Kurdish parts of Syria, and why an Australian radio host is out of a job.

More than 50 years ago in October 1973, Syria briefly recaptured the Golan Heights from Israel in fierce fighting around the provincial capital city of

With the new regime in Syria supported by Ankara, and the deployment of Turkish forces, no one in Israel wants to be caught off guard.

A prominent Druze leader in Lebanon has said that he will soon visit Syria to meet its interim leader as tensions simmer between members of the minority group, the war-torn country’s interim government,

Israel has been a steady supporter of the Kurdish cause, especially in Syria. While the Palestinian issue has long shaped Middle Eastern politics, recent events have opened new opportunities for Kurdish-Israeli ties.

The transitional authorities in Syria are viewed with suspicion by the US and Israel, while various groups want a decentralised government.

Even as tensions between Israel and Syria ramped up in recent days, a small group of Syrian Jews recently celebrated a milestone that once seemed unthinkable: a return visit to their home country. Under the auspices of the new Syrian government,

Correspondents' stories from Syria, Israel, Russia, Sierra Leone and Loveland, in the US.

The latest attacks came a week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel demanded the demilitarization of much of southern Syria, stoking fears of conflict with the country’s new leadership.