SYRIA: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a visit to Israeli troops in southern Syria on Wednesday that the Iranian regime was on the verge of collapse, as fighting in the six-month Middle East war intensifies.

“There is still work to be done — the main task is to bring down the terror regime in Iran. We are very close to that. We know that the entire axis will ultimately collapse,” he said on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon on the Israel-Syria border during a visit with Defence Minister Israel Katz.

In southern Syria, Israeli forces have been stationed in a “security zone” since the fall of longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December 2024.

They occupy what was previously a buffer zone patrolled by the UN that had separated Israeli and Syrian forces in the Israeli-occupied Golan since 1974.

“We will not allow any terrorist army to establish itself on our border,” Netanyahu reiterated on Wednesday.

Syria condemned Netanyahu’s entry into its territory on Wednesday, calling the move “provocative and a blatant violation” of its sovereignty.

“The Syrian Arab Republic strongly condemns the illegal entry of Israeli occupation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into Syrian territory and his tour of Mount Hermon, in a provocative move and a blatant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and of international law,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Katz also visited Israeli troops stationed in southern Syria two weeks ago, prompting condemnation from Damascus, which denounced a “flagrant violation of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since the fall of Assad and made repeated incursions into Syrian territory.

Officials have also repeatedly vowed to keep troops in the security zone, where Israel is seeking a broader demilitarized area.

On Wednesday, Katz directly addressed Syrian interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, saying Israeli troops would not withdraw from the area.

“We are here sending a very strong and clear message to the president of Syria, who sits 35 kilometers away down there in his palace in Damascus: We are here on Mount Hermon, we are in the security zone, and we are not moving from here,” Katz said.

Netanyahu’s threats against Iran come as Tehran and Washington are locked in a stalemate over the strategic Strait of Hormuz, with both sides trading attacks in the past week, six months into the war that the US and Israel launched against Iran at the end of February.