Israeli forces destroyed the Syrian military fleet in an operation on Monday night as part of a broad campaign to eliminate strategic threats to Israel, defence minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday, during a visit to a naval base in Haifa.

“The IDF (military) has been operating in Syria in recent days to strike and destroy strategic capabilities that threaten the State of Israel. The navy operated last night to destroy the Syrian fleet with great success,” Katz said.

Reuters reports that in a statement he said Israeli forces were establishing themselves in the buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and said he had ordered a “sterile defensive zone” to be created in southern Syria, without a permanent Israeli presence, to prevent any terrorist threat to Israel.