The IDF acknowledged that its troops had entered Syrian territory but told the BBC that reports of tanks approaching Damascus were “false”.

It said some troops had been stationed within the Area of Separation that borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights “and then a few additional points”.

“When we say a few additional points, we’re talking the area of the Area of Separation, or the area of the buffer zone in vicinity,” IDF spokesperson Nadav Shoshani told the BBC.

BBC Verify has geolocated an image of an IDF soldier standing just over half a kilometre beyond the demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights, inside Syria on a hillside near the village of Kwdana.

On Monday, the Israeli military released photos of its troops who crossed from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights into the demilitarised buffer zone in Syria where UN peacekeepers are based.

The IDF seizure of Syrian positions in the buffer zone was a “temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found”, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.

“If we can establish neighbourly relations and peaceful relations with the new forces emerging in Syria, that’s our desire. But if we do not, we will do whatever it takes to defend the State of Israel and the border of Israel,” he said on Monday.

Turkeys foreign ministry condemned Israel’s entry into the buffer zone, accusing it of an “occupying mentality” during a “sensitive period, when the possibility of achieving the peace and stability the Syrian people have desired for many years has emerged”.

This buffer zone, also known as the Area of Separation was set up as part of Israel’s ceasefire agreement with Syria in 1974 to keep Israeli and Syrian forces separated, following Israel’s earlier occupation of the Golan Heights.

Israel unilaterally annexed the Golan in 1981. The move was not recognised internationally, although the US did so unilaterally in 2019.