Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said recent military gains against Hezbollah may have opened the way to peace with Lebanon and Syria The Korea Times reports.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting on September 21, Netanyahu declared: “Our victories in Lebanon against Hezbollah have opened a window for a possibility that was not even imagined before our recent operations and actions: the possibility of peace with our northern neighbours.”

Israel and Syria have technically remained in a state of war since 1948. Direct talks were opened following the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad in 2024, and officials in Damascus have indicated they hope to finalise security and military agreements with Israel by the end of 2025.

Military operations in Gaza against Hamas, however, have at times put the talks with Israel’s northern neighbours on the backburner in recent months.

Netanyahu acknowledged the progress made in those discussions but cautioned that “it is still a long way off” the paper reported

Israel has continued to carry out strikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon despite a ceasefire reached last November that was intended to halt more than a year of clashes with the Iran-backed movement. As such, Israeli forces remain deployed in five areas of southern Lebanon regarded in Jerusalem as strategic.

In Syria meanwhile, Israel has maintained troops in the UN-patrolled buffer zone since the fall of Assad to an Islamist-led coalition in December 2024, and has conducted hundreds of air strikes. Damascus has not responded militarily and according to long-time Middle East watchers would be ill-advised to do so.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said in the past week that his government was negotiating terms that would see Israeli troops withdraw from areas they have recently occupied. Israel, for its part, has demanded the creation of a demilitarised zone in southern Syria. A Syrian military source confirmed to AFP that heavy weaponry had already been removed from this area although no additional details were initially available.

The US has been closely involved in efforts to broker agreements The Korea Times added, with Washington urging both Syria and Israel to formalise an end to hostilities. Washington has also asked Beirut to disarm Hezbollah, which remains the only faction to retain its weapons following Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.