Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to sign a security agreement reached between Israel and Syria in September on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, according to an Arab news report.

Jerusalem and Damascus reached a written deal with the help of mediation by the United States in September, and a signing was planned while both Netanyahu and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa were in New York City, unnamed informed sources told the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper on Tuesday.

But the Israeli premier backed out, the report added.

The Prime Minister’s Office dismissed the report in a statement hours after it was published as “complete fake news.”

“There were contacts and meetings under US auspices, but matters were never brought to the point of agreements or understandings with Syria,” it said.

The IDF has been deployed to nine posts inside southern Syria for nearly a year, since former president Bashar al-Assad’s regime was brought down, mostly within a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the border between the countries. Two posts are on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon.

Israel said it seized the areas in southern Syria last December due to fears they would fall into the wrong hands after the regime fell, and said it would hold on to them until a new security deal was........

© The Times of Israel