Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the collapse of Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria was a “direct result” of Israel’s military campaign against Iran and its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“This is a historic day in the history of the Middle East,” he said.
But Netanyahu said he had ordered the military to occupy the buffer zone that separates the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from the rest of Syria, a sign of the potential danger Israel feels from Damascus’ unknown rulers.
“Together with the Minister of Defense and with the full support of the Cabinet, I yesterday directed the Israel Defense Forces to take control of the buffer zone and its adjacent dominant positions,” he said during a visit to the Golan Heights. “We will not allow any hostile forces on our borders Take root.”
This is the first time Israeli troops have been stationed in the buffer zone since the 1974 agreement establishing the Line of Control between Israel and Syria, although they have briefly entered no man’s land in the past. UN peacekeepers have been patrolling the buffer zone since 1974. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and annexed it in 1981.
Israeli leaders watched events unfolding across the Syrian border with a mixture of horror and joy as 50 years of détente were upended in a matter of hours.
“We don’t know much,” said Boaz Shapira, a researcher at the Alma Foundation, a think tank specializing in northern Israel. “What we were used to in Syria – 50 years of Assad’s regime – has completely changed.”
Bashar al-Assad is hardly an ally, but there is an understanding between the two countries that they can coexist. Although Israel occasionally provides medical treatment to casualties of the Syrian civil war, it remains officially neutral in the conflict. Over the years, the Israeli military has also targeted supply lines to Iran and its proxy Hezbollah in Syria — most notably killing an Iranian military commander at the Iranian consulate in Damascus in April — but has avoided targeting Assad The German regime itself.
The rapid rebel capture of Damascus means Israeli leaders will have to assess the impact on their own security.
Iran has now lost one of its most important bulwarks in the region. This will be cause for celebration for Israel, which has been fighting Iranian-backed forces in Gaza (Hamas) and Lebanon (Hezbollah) since last October.
Netanyahu has declared that the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is a step towards changing “the balance of power in the region in the coming years”, which he will see as furthering that goal.
Mordechai Kedar, who has worked in Israeli military intelligence for 25 years and specializes in Syria, said events in Syria were a domino effect from Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. “It’s not just Israel – the whole Middle East will be celebrating,” he told CNN.
A person holds a Syrian opposition flag to celebrate the fall of the Assad regime in a Druze village in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on December 8, 2024. – Stoyan Nenov/Reuters
Amos Yadlin, a former major general in the Israel Defense Forces and director of military intelligence, said the fall of the Assad regime was a “heavy blow” to Iran.
“The rebels tore down posters of (Iranian commander Qassem) Soleimani and Nasrallah at the Iranian embassy in Damascus, which illustrates the seriousness of the attack on the axis,” he said. “As Syria With the loss, rebuilding Hezbollah appears to be more difficult, with Syria serving as a logistical backstop for Assad, Iran and Russian weapons.”
On the other hand, no one—including Israel—has a clear idea of who the rebels are now in control of Syria, and how they will wield power.
The offensive is led by Tahrir al-Sham, a former al Qaeda affiliate. The U.S. government still has a $10 million bounty on its leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, whose real name is Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Kidal said despite their radical roots, initial signs are positive. “They’ve been pretty rational so far,” he said. “For example, they left the government to run the country.”
Jolani called on the rebels not to harm state institutions. “All troops in Damascus city are strictly prohibited from approaching public institutions, which will continue to be under the supervision of the former prime minister until they are officially handed over, and firing bullets into the air is prohibited,” he wrote on Telegram.
“Here they are learning from the mistakes of the Americans in Iraq. They don’t want to destroy the country. They want the system to work – certainly under different rules and different leadership. It’s a very rational approach. Ways of governing the country.
Yadlin said that Jolani “demonstrated extremely high political skills and conquered Syria with almost no effort.”
“In the short term, the rebels do not pose a threat to Israel,” he said. “When he is asked to establish rule in Syria, he will not involve the most powerful military force in the region. Israel needs to set the rules of the game against Syria in the same aggressive way as Lebanon.
This view is not universal. “The bottom line is that much of Syria is now under the control of al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates,” Amichai Chiklid, Israel’s minister for diaspora and combating anti-Semitism, said in a statement. He called on the Israeli military to establish full control in the buffer zone that has existed between Israeli and Syrian-controlled territory since 1974.
Indeed, Israel’s first priority will be securing its borders with Syria. The Israel Defense Forces said the deployment of troops in the Golan buffer zone was “to ensure the security of Golan Heights communities and Israeli citizens.”
Shapira said he doubted Israel would anger the new leadership in Damascus by pushing into the Syrian-controlled Golan Heights. “Capturing more territory means we have to deal with other players who may not be too happy about it,” he added.
“There are dozens of different militia groups,” Shapira said. “This will be very challenging for Israel.”
“The State of Israel does not interfere in the internal conflict in Syria,” the Israeli military said in a statement about the operation in the Golan Heights.
There is no doubt that Israel’s top security and political leaders have been mostly silent on events in Syria as they assess how to respond.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said Assad’s ouster emphasized “the need to build a strong regional alliance with Saudi Arabia and the Abraham Accord countries (Bahrain, UAE, Morocco, Sudan) to jointly solve the problem regional instability.” The Iranian axis has been significantly weakened, and Israel needs to strive for comprehensive political achievements that will also help its development in Gaza and the West Bank.
CNN’s Abeer Salman and Mike Schwartz in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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