The Israeli invasion on Sunday appears to have been in preparation for some time.

Only one week before the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham offensive was launched, Israeli media reported that the chief of the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police, had been in Turkey for a meeting with the head of a Turkish intelligence agency.

Also one week before the offensive, Israel began new illegal construction in the demilitarized zone between the Syrian-controlled and the Israeli-occupied sectors of the Golan Heights in violation of the 1974 disengagement agreement.

According to UNDOF, the United Nations peacekeeping force which monitors the ceasefire, these were “severe violations.”

Syrians, regardless of their political outlook, will want to see their country back on its feet, united and independent as soon as possible. No supporter of Palestinian liberation has anything to fear from a truly sovereign Syria.

That is precisely why there are many powerful outside forces, principally Israel and the United States, who want Syria to remain weak and become subservient to their agenda. If division, dependency and chaos are the only ways to achieve that, then that is what they will foster and foment.

Israel, for its part, is wasting no time capitalizing on the tumultuous and historic events to seize more land and consolidate its genocidal grip on the region.