A security pact between Jerusalem and Damascus could happen within days, according to Syria’s president. 

Speaking to reporters at Damascus, President Ahmed Al-Sharaa said the security pact is a “necessity,” calling on the United Nations to monitor that Syria’s airspace and territorial unity not be violated by Israel. 

“It’s a difficult case — you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Reuters cited Mr. Sharaa as saying. 

Israel and Syria had been “four to five days” away from reaching an agreement in July, Mr. Sharaa said, but it fell apart due to Israel’s intervention on behalf of the Druze minority in southern Syria after they were attacked by government forces and Bedouin tribes. 

Israeli airstrikes targeted Mr. Sharaa’s forces in southern Syria as well as the defense ministry headquarters at Damascus. The attacks, which were close to the presidential palace, were “not a message, but a declaration of war,” Mr. Sharaa said. 

The Syrian president said Israel had conducted more than 1,000 airstrikes and 400 ground incursions in Syria since the toppling of Bashar al Assad on December 8 of last year. 

Israel has acknowledged launching intensive airstrikes that mainly targeted Mr. Assad’s military equipment, including chemical weapons, to prevent it from falling into the hands of jihadists. 

Israel also took full control with a buffer zone separating the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights and Syrian territory, as well as Mount Hermon, which was previously controlled by Mr. Assad. 

Israel argued that the power vacuum left by Mr. Assad posed a danger to Syria’s national security, fearing jihadists would appear in the strategically important areas bordering Israel. 

Mr. Sharaa said that the two countries were looking to return to a deal similar to the one from 1974 between Israel and Syria in which the buffer zone was created. 

American media outlet Axios reported that the Syrian foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani, met with Israel’s strategic affairs minister, Ron Dermer, at London this week to discuss the security pact brokered by the United States. 

The pact would see Israel receiving security guarantees in return for withdrawing troops from Syrian territory. 

But Israel’s defense minister said last month that IDF forces would remain on Mount Hermon and in the security zone, as it is “vital to defending communities in the Golan and Galilee from threats emanating from the Syrian side.”

The need to stay in the strategic border area is a “central lesson from the events of October 7,” Mr. Katz said. 

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war and annexed the territory in 1981. 

Mr. Sharaa, like many other Syrians, is believed to have a particularly strong interest in bringing back the Golan Heights under Syrian control as his parents were born there. 

Israel is, however, unlikely to give up the territory as many Israelis see it as a vital strategic point and an integral part of the country.