Israel will not interfere in the Syrian uprising, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in an interview to Arabic news channel Al-Arabiya on Tuesday.
"We don’t intervene with what happens in Syria, but it does not mean we are not concerned" Netanyahu said in the interview. "We could only hope for a good future for the people of Syria."
"We would like the peace and quiet on the Israeli-Syrian border to be maintained," Netanyahu added. "I’d like to have that ultimately turned into a formal peace between Israel and Syria."
On Monday, Syrian forces and militiamen loyal to President Bashar Assad killed 10 people in attacks on residential districts in Homs, the Local Coordination Committees activist group said.
Also on Monday, Syria officially announced that it recognizes a Palestinian state on 1967 lines with east Jerusalem as its capital, the official news agency SANA said citing a source from the country’s foreign ministry.
According to a statement quoted by SANA, "The Syrian Arab Republic recognizes the state of Palestine on the lines of June 4, 1967 with east Jerusalem as its capital on the basis of preserving the legitimate Palestinian rights."
The statement added that Syria now considers the Palestinian Liberation Organization office in Damascus as the official embassy of the Palestinian state.
Syria saw its first major sectarian violence in four months of protests against Assad’s rule when 30 people were killed at the weekend in clashes in Homs between members of the minority Alawite sect, who dominate the security apparatus, and the majority Sunni population.
Diplomatic pressure mounted on Assad on Monday after Qatar, previously a major supporter, shut its embassy in Damascus and the European Union said it was considering tougher sanctions.
Assad, an Alawite, has been waging a military campaign to try and crush the uprising for political freedoms, during which troops and security forces killed over 1,400 civilians and arrested over 12,000 Syrians, according to rights campaigners.
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