The collapse of the Assad regime has prompted a punishing military response from Israel, which has launched airstrikes at military targets across Syria and deployed ground troops both into and beyond a demilitarized buffer zone for the first time in 50 years.

Israel said Monday that it had carried out strikes across Syria as rebel forces claimed control in Damascus, the capital, after the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad and his government. In an address Monday,

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the fall of Bashar Assad's regime in Syria is "fraught" with danger, but hailed the development regardless.