Israeli troops who seized strategic ground in southern Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad will remain on the summit of Mount Hermon indefinitely, Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday after visiting troops there.

The Israeli military is gearing up to stay on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon and in the buffer zone on the Israel-Syria border at least throughout the winter.

The European Union may soon suspend sanctions on Syria related to energy and transport but has yet to agree on whether to ease restrictions on financial transactions, according to three diplomats and a document seen by Reuters.

A six-phase “road map” prepared by the EU’s foreign service advocates a “staged approach” to lifting sanctions on the country “to incentivise peaceful transition and reconstruction”. An arms embargo, sanctions on equipment used for internal repression and measures targeting Assad regime officials would be exempt, the document states.

European Union foreign ministers have agreed to begin lifting sanctions on Syria, but insist that the measures should be reimposed if they see any abuses by the country’s new rulers