WASHINGTON: A top US military officer visited Israel from Wednesday to Friday, meeting with Israeli defense officials and discussing the situation in Syria, among other regional topics, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.
Army General Michael Kurilla, CENTCOM’s commander, met Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, along with Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, CENTCOM said.
Washington has urged Israel to be in close consultation with the US over events unfolding in Syria, where days earlier Syrian rebels led by rebel leader Abu Mohammed Al-Golani brought an end to more than 50 years of rule by the Assad family, as ousted President Bashar Assad fled the country.
The world has been watching to see if Syria’s new rulers can stabilize the country in which more than a decade of civil war killed hundreds of thousands and sparked a refugee crisis.
Following the collapse of Assad’s regime, the Israeli military said its jets conducted hundreds of strikes in Syria and destroyed the bulk of its strategic weapons stockpiles.
Katz has ordered Israeli troops to prepare to stay over the winter on Mount Hermon, a strategic location overlooking Damascus, adding to signs that Israel is planning a prolonged military presence in Syria.
“The leaders discussed a range of regional security issues, to include the ongoing situation in Syria, and preparedness against other strategic and regional threats,” the CENTCOM statement said.
CENTCOM said Kurilla also visited Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon in recent days.
While Israel welcomed the removal of Assad, an ally of arch rival Iran, it is suspicious of the rebel groups that toppled him, many of which have origins linked to Islamist groups.
In Lebanon, Kurilla visited Beirut to monitor withdrawal of the first Israeli troops under a ceasefire reached last month for a war that killed thousands and displaced over a million.
Israel is separately waging a war in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, where its military assault over the last 14 months has killed tens of thousands and led to genocide and war crimes accusations that it denies.
Israel’s assault on Gaza followed an Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian Hamas militants that killed 1,200.

Damascus: Jordan will host US, EU, Turkish and Arab diplomats on Saturday for high-level talks on Syria, a day after celebrations in Damascus and nationwide rejoicing at the ouster of president Bashar Assad.
Syrians celebrated the day they called the “Friday of victory” with fireworks heralding the fall of the Assad dynasty.
More than half a century of brutal rule by his clan came to a sudden end on Sunday, after a lightning rebel offensive swept across the country and took the capital.
Assad’s fall has also led to fast-moving diplomatic developments, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken among envoys set to discuss Syria on Saturday in the Jordanian city of Aqaba.
Turkiye, meanwhile, will reopen its embassy in Damascus, closed since 2012 amid calls by Ankara for Assad to step down.
A Qatari diplomat said a delegation from the Gulf emirate would visit Syria on Sunday to meet transitional government officials and discuss aid and the reopening of their embassy.
Unlike other Arab states, Qatar never restored diplomatic ties with Assad after a rupture in 2011.
Assad has fled Syria, closing an era in which suspected dissidents were jailed or killed, and capping nearly 14 years of war that killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.
'Tears of joy'
Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani, head of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) which spearheaded the offensive, had called on Syrians “to go to the streets to express their joy.”
Celebrations continued into the night on the first Friday — the Muslim day of rest and prayer — since Assad took flight.
Umayyad Square in Damascus was jammed with vehicles, people and waving flags as fireworks shot into the air, AFPTV live images showed.
Thousands flocked to the capital’s landmark Umayyad Mosque, some raising the three-star Syrian independence flag that none dared wave in the capital during Assad’s repressive rule.
Crowds also gathered in the squares and streets of other Syrian cities, including Homs, Hama and Idlib.
There was a festive and relaxed atmosphere as hundreds rallied in the main square of Syria’s second city Aleppo, a scene of fierce fighting during the country’s civil war, AFP correspondents said.
A huge billboard depicting Assad and his father Hafez was set on fire.
Ahmad Abd Al-Majed, 39, an engineer who returned to Aleppo from Turkiye, said that many shed “tears of joy and happiness.”
“Syrians deserve to be happy,” he said.
In the southern city of Sweida, the heartland of Syria’s Druze minority, Bayan Al-Hinnawi, 77, never believed he would live to see such a day.
“It’s a wonderful sight. Nobody could have imagined this could happen,” said Hinnawi, who spent 17 years in prison.
Tens of thousands missing
Sunni Muslim HTS is rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda and designated a terrorist organization by many Western governments.
The group has sought to moderate its rhetoric, and the interim government insists the rights of all Syrians will be protected — as will the rule of law.
The European Union was seeking “to establish contacts” with the new rulers soon, an EU official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The UN refugee agency said the new government had sent “constructive” initial signals, including asking the organization to stay in the country.
Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) democratic countries, who met virtually on Friday, expressed hope for “a peaceful and orderly transition through the definition of an inclusive political process” in Syria.
Inside much of Syria, the focus is turning toward unraveling the secrets of Assad’s rule, particularly the network of detention centers and suspected torture sites.
Syrians have descended upon prisons, hospitals and morgues in search of long-disappeared loved ones.
“I turned the world upside down looking,” Abu Mohammed told AFP as he searched for news of three missing relatives at the Mazzeh air base in Damascus.
“We just want a hint of where they were.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it documented more than 35,000 disappearances during Assad’s rule, with the actual number likely far higher.
While Syrians celebrate the end of Assad’s brutal rule, they face a struggle for necessities in a country ravaged by war, sanctions and runaway inflation.
On Friday, the EU announced the launch of an “air bridge” operation to deliver an initial 50 tons of health supplies via neighboring Turkiye.
Israel ready to stay in buffer zone
Assad was propped up by Russia — where a senior Russian official told US media he has fled — as well as Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told private NTV television that his country had urged Russia and Iran not to intervene militarily “to ensure minimum loss of life.”
The rebels launched their offensive on November 27, the same day a ceasefire took effect in the Israel-Hezbollah war, which saw Israel inflict staggering losses on Assad’s Lebanese ally.
Both Israel and Turkiye, which backs some of the rebels who ousted Assad, have since carried out strikes inside Syria.
Israel’s latest strikes hit military sites in the Eastern Qalamun region, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Saturday.
Israel has also sent troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone that separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights, in a move the UN said violated a 1974 armistice.
The army has been ordered to “prepare to remain” there throughout the winter, Defense Minister Israel Katz’s office said Friday.