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

The violence in Tartous province marks the deadliest challenge yet to the Islamist-led authorities which swept Bashar al-Assad from power.

Israeli fighter jets have launched hundreds of airstrikes, while soldiers have seized a buffer zone and captured military posts in territory formerly under Syrian control.

Ankara's growing military presence in Syria has led to a diplomatic clash between former allies Israel and Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has supported Hamas, even hinting at some sort of armed intervention.

Assad’s fall to bomb all the Syrian military assets it wanted to keep out of the rebels’ hands – striking nearly 500 targets, destroying the navy, and taking out, it claims, 90% of Syria’s known surface-to-air missiles.

Bel Trew speaks to commanders of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that led the charge to topple Bashar al-Assad, about the long-term planning and military innovations that brought vi

The Israeli military hit weapons depots and air defenses, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Israel has said it aims to keep military equipment away from extremists.

Syria’s leadership isn’t the only aspect of the country to be changing as a result of this month’s toppling of longtime dictator, Bashar al-Assad. The blurring of its borders is also underway — from Israel to the southwest and Turkey to the north.

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.

Israel said it had wiped out the vast majority of the Syrian military's assets, including huge chunks of its air-defense network.

The goal, said Avi Dichter, an Israeli minister, “is to establish facts on the ground” as Islamist rebels seek to cement their rule over the fractured country.