"South Syria is a done story," Kremlins officials said over the weekend after the Syrian, backed by army pro-Iranian forces, made gains on the ground over the past week.
In recent days Assad's army has deployed just east of the border with Israel, in accordance with the 1974 armistice agreement between the two countries following the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
With that, Israel was still troubled by certain aspects of the new situation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone on Friday about the developments along the tense frontier.
Russian officials reiterated their commitment that southwestern Syria is and will remain empty of Iranian forces or pro-Iranian militias.
The Russian position, however, is that as long as armed groups continue attacking the Assad regime, Iran's presence in Syria is justified.
Therefore, despite Russia's position that all foreign forces need to leave Syria when the war ends, in the foreseeable future those forces, including those loyal to Iran, will remain in the country, said Israeli officials who were informed of Moscow's stance.
In this context, the Prime Minister's Office said of the phone call with Putin on Friday that "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that Israel will continue to act against Iran's military entrenchment in Syria."
A commander in the regional alliance that backs Assad said the army's victory in southwestern Syria forced Israel to accept the Syrian army's return to the old 1974 armistice lines.
"The Israelis has been forced into submission … the file of the south has ended in favor of the Syrian army," the commander told Reuters.
Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman's office said he had also spoken by phone with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoygu, over the weekend.
The two "exchanged opinions about the situation in Syria and specifically discussed the complex reality on the Golan Heights," Lieberman's office said.
Shoygu and Lieberman also agreed over the crucial need to continue military cooperation, and the need to hold continual dialogue at the senior level in the coming days.
Russia concurs with Netanyahu's position that the 1974 armistice with Syria should be re-implemented along the border and expects both countries to uphold the agreement.
In southwestern Syria, as stated, the Syrian army and allied forces have advanced even closer to the Israeli Golan Heights. Rebels who refused to return to Assad's rule boarded buses for opposition-controlled northern Syria, state television and rebels said.
The army, backed by a Russian air campaign, has been pushing into the edges of Quneitra province following an offensive last month that routed rebels in adjoining Daraa province who were once backed by Washington, Jordan and Gulf states.
The offensive has restored Syrian government control over a swathe of strategic territory at the borders with Jordan and Israel.
The capture of a string of villages, announced by the army on Saturday, comes as the evacuation of rebels and their families resumed for the second day from villages along the Golan frontier towards rebel-controlled northern Syria.
"We are in a bus with around 60 people, young men and families and about to leave and become uprooted from our homes," said Maher Ali, 38, an activist who decided with his family to leave rather than risk retribution for his long record of peaceful opposition Assad's authoritarian rule.
A deal negotiated by Russian officers with rebels in the Quneitra area last week allows safe passage to rebels opposed to a return to state rule while offering others who decide to stay Russian guarantees against army encroachments in their own localities, rebels say.
It also allows the return of Syrian army brigades back to where they were stationed near the 1974 demilitarized zone with Israel on the Golan frontier.
More than 2,500 people, among them fighters from Islamist groups who have rejected the deal, left on Friday headed to opposition areas in northern Syria.
Russia's Interfax news agency, citing the Russian military, confirmed the same were taken by bus to the Idlib zone.
Some rebels say Russia, which led the military campaign and negotiated most of the surrender deals and committed military police to oversee its implementation, has been trying to push back the Syrian army and its Iranian-backed militias from committing excesses in former rebel-held towns.
Other phases of the agreement, which includes the handover of weapons and the entry of Russian military police to some villages, were expected to be implemented in the coming days, a rebel source said.
Tens of thousands of people have been sheltering at the frontier since the Russian and Syrian aerial bombing campaign, which the opposition called a scorched earth policy, began a month ago.
Russia has been exerting pressure on the Syrian army to facilitate the return of many of the displaced and has also asked the United Nations to send regular convoys of aid to ease the humanitarian crisis triggered by the offensive, U.N. officials said.
A senior Western diplomatic source said Moscow, which has reached understandings with Israel and Jordan that made it possible to move on with the offensive, was keen to stabilize the border area to prove that its Syria intervention sought a political settlement to the seven-year-old conflict.
The Kremlin said Putin discussed joint humanitarian efforts in Syria, particularly in the eastern Ghouta province, during a phone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Saturday.
On Friday, France sent 50 tons of medical aid to government-controlled eastern Ghouta in Syria after Russia agreed to facilitate its delivery, raising hopes for future aid efforts.
