Israel Conducts Raids in Syria Amid Accusations of Cease-Fire Violations

The Israeli military said on Sunday that it has been conducting “operational raids” in recent weeks on Mount Hermon in Syria, continuing a military campaign on Syrian soil that is drawing increasing international condemnation.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based Syrian war monitor, on Sunday also reported airstrikes around the Syrian capital, Damascus, attributing them to the Israeli military. The strikes targeted an ammunitions warehouse used by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted in a rebel offensive last month, the observatory said. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the airstrikes.

Israel’s continued military operations in Syria, which it said on Sunday are intended to “strengthen the defense of Israel’s citizens,” have drawn accusations from the United Nations and some member states that Israel is violating a decades-long cease-fire by sending its troops within and beyond a buffer zone between the countries.

The raids come just days after Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, said he had met with members of the U.N. peacekeeping mission on the border between Syria and Israel. The U.N. Disengagement Observer Force, known as UNDOF, was established by the Security Council in 1974 to maintain a cease-fire between Israeli and Syrian forces after a 1973 war and to supervise the buffer zone that agreement established.

After rebel forces in Syria last month suddenly toppled the Assad regime, Israeli ground forces advanced into and beyond the demilitarized zone, marking their first overt entry into the country in a half century and prompting the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, to decry Israel’s violations of the 1974 agreement.

Mr. Sa’ar said in a statement that “extremist armed groups” had attacked peacekeepers in the buffer zone, violating the cease-fire. UNDOF did not immediately respond to a request for comment on those claims.