Turkey on Tuesday accused Israel of an "occupying mentality" after its forces entered a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights after the ouster of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad.

"We strongly condemn Israel's entry into the separation zone between Israel and Syria," a foreign ministry statement said, adding: "In this sensitive period.. Israel is once again displaying its occupying mentality."

Members of the Syrian government under ousted President Bashar Assad will gradually transfer power to a new transitional cabinet headed by Mohammed al-Bashir.

The outgoing government met with al-Bashir for the first time since Assad fled Damascus over the weekend.

The Israeli military on Tuesday denied reports that its tanks were advancing towards Damascus, insisting that Israeli forces were stationed in a buffer zone near the Israeli-Syrian border.

"The reports circulated by some media outlets claiming that the Israeli Defense Forces (military) are advancing towards or nearing Damascus are completely false," military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on X. "The IDF forces are stationed within the buffer zone and at defensive points near the border in order to protect Israel's borders."

A monitor of Syria's war said Tuesday it had recorded more than 300 Israeli strikes since rebels toppled the country's longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad over the weekend.

"The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has been able to document around 310 strikes" carried out by "Israeli warplanes" since the announcement of the fall of Assad on Sunday morning, the monitor said, while AFP journalists in the capital reported hearing loud explosions early Tuesday.

Israel conducted strikes Monday targeting positions of the deposed Syrian government's army including in Damascus, the south and the coast, a war monitor said, the latest in a series of attacks since rebels took over a day earlier.

"Israeli strikes targeted military sites, including weapons depots housing anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft weapons," Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor told AFP. "Israel is deliberately destroying anything it perceives as a threat," he added.

The Israeli military said Monday that four soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon, the first deaths announced in the area since the start of a ceasefire with Hezbollah 12 days ago.

The four reservists, all from the same battalion, "fell in combat" on Sunday, the military said without giving further details.

Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Monday that his country's military takeover of the buffer zone along its border with Syria was a "limited and temporary step".

"This is a limited and temporary step we took for security reasons," Saar said in a press conference at the foreign ministry in Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday that he had ordered the army to "take control" of the zone after the fall of Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad.

The Lebanese Army said one person was killed and four soldiers wounded Monday in an Israeli strike in the country's south, where a fragile ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel came into force last month.

"The Israeli enemy targeted a car near the Saf al-Hawa/Bint Jbeil military checkpoint, killing a citizen and lightly wounding four soldiers," the army said in a statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he had ordered the Israeli military to "seize" a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone between the Israeli- and Syrian-controlled Golan Heights.

The Israeli military said Sunday it had deployed forces to a demilitarized buffer zone in southwest Syria abutting the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights after Damascus fell to rebel forces.