But it is Israel’s capture of Syria’s highest peak, the Mount Hermon summit, that may prove among the most lasting prizes – though officials have insisted that its occupation is temporary. “This is the highest place in the region, looking upon Lebanon, upon Syria, Israel,” said Efraim Inbar, director of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS). An Israeli military spokesperson this week denied that forces were “advancing toward” Damascus. Alain Dejean/Sygma/Getty ImagesIsrael captured the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau in southwestern Syria that abuts Mount Hermon, in the 1967 war and has occupied it since. In an academic paper published in 2011, he wrote of the many advantages presented by Mount Hermon.

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