Damascus, Syria - Israel has launched more than 300 airstrikes on Syria since the stunning fall of Bashar al-Assad, a war monitor said Tuesday, amid reports of Israeli forces pushing deeper into Syrian territory.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Right assessed that Israeli raids had "destroyed the most important military sites" in the country.

Assad fled Syria as a rebel alliance swept into the capital Damascus, bringing to an end on Sunday to five decades of brutal rule by his family.

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of the Salafist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham which headed the offensive, has begun talks on a transfer of power and vowed to pursue former senior government officials responsible for torture and war crimes.

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But with Syria in flux and in the absence of a government authority just two days after Assad's escape, AFP journalists in Damascus were unable to obtain comment from the Syrian side on the Israeli strikes.

Israel immediately invaded a buffer zone east of the annexed Golan Heights after Assad's fall, in what Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described as a "limited and temporary step" for "security reasons."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the Golan Heights, illegally occupied by Israel for almost 60 years, would perpetually remain part of Israel.

On Tuesday, Al Jazeera reported that Israeli forces had advanced further into Syrian territory, not far from Damascus. An Israeli military spokesperson denied the claims.

The US, Israel's main backer, said the latest incursion must be "temporary," after the US said Israel was violating a 1974 deal, which Netanyahu declared null and void.

Lebanon's Hezbollah, which supported Assad throughout the civil war that broke out in 2011, condemned the strikes late Monday and lambasted Israel for "occupying more land in the Golan Heights."

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Iran also condemned the Israeli military's incursion into the buffer zone, calling it a violation of law, and was joined by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.

Israel has continuously bombarded its neighbors since last year's Hamas-led October 7 attack out of Gaza. It faces widespread accusations of an ongoing genocide against Palestinians and has also killed thousands in Lebanon.