Israel’s military has seized a strategic mountain top in its contested border area with Syria and advanced on positions beyond it, reshaping the frontier potentially for the long term.

Syria’s leadership isn’t the only aspect of the country to be changing as a result of this month’s toppling of longtime dictator, Bashar al-Assad. The blurring of its borders is also underway — from Israel to the southwest and Turkey to the north.

The Israeli military hit weapons depots and air defenses, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Israel has said it aims to keep military equipment away from extremists.

Israel is celebrating the fall of Assad because it breaks the noose that Iran had been patiently tightening around Israel’s borders in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Tehran’s pincer is now broken and rendered useless. From the point of view of Israel’s wider conflict with the Islamic Republic, the collapse of Assad’s regime is a strategic victory.