The move was planned before the fall of the Assad regime, an official said.
Rebel forces in Syria captured the capital Damascus and toppled the regime of President Bashar Assad in a lightning-quick advance across the country.
Meanwhile, the ceasefire in Lebanon is holding despite ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah targets, which Israeli officials say are responses to ceasefire violations by the Iranian-backed militant group. The Israel Defense Forces continues its intense airstrike and ground campaigns in Gaza.
Tensions also remain high between Israel and Iran after tit-for-tat long-range strikes in recent months and threats of further military action from both sides.
At least 33 people were killed in an Israeli strike in central Gaza, according to a hospital director at Al-Aqsa.
Most of the injured who were transferred to the hospital were seriously injured and some of them had their limbs amputated as a result of the bombing, according to the director.
A large number of victims of the bombing in Nuseirat are still trapped under the rubble, the director said.
-ABC News' Will Gretsky
Israel's Mossad chief David Barnea traveled to Doha, Qatar, on Wednesday to advance a ceasefire and hostage release deal, a senior official told ABC News.
Israeli troops will remain in Syria slightly beyond a buffer zone -- created by the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement -- for "strategic reasons," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement Thursday.
"The collapse of the Syrian regime created a vacuum on Israel’s border and in the buffer zone established by the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement. Israel will not permit jihadi groups to fill that vacuum and threaten Israeli communities on the Golan Heights with October 7th style attacks," Netanyahu's office said in a statement.
"That is why Israeli forces entered the buffer zone and took control of strategic sites near Israel’s border. This deployment is temporary until a force that is committed to the 1974 agreement can be established and security on our border can be guaranteed," the statement said.
The U.S. believes an individual seen in a video circulating online could be Travis Pete Timmerman, an American who went missing from Hungary earlier in the year, two officials familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Officials said they were seeking to provide support to the person, who was featured in a video published to social media on Thursday. The man does not speak in the short video and is seen lying on a mattress on the floor.
Timmerman, 29, has been missing since June 2, 2024, the date of his last contact, according to Missouri State Highway Patrol.
It wasn't immediately clear when and where the circulating video was taken, but the person speaking in Arabic to the camera identifies the man as an American, according to a translation. The speaker was identified as a Syrian local.
-ABC News' Shannon K. Kingston
