What Israel’s capture of Syrian territory as Assad fell signifies for the Middle East

Analysis What Israel’s capture of Syrian territory as Assad fell signifies for the Middle East
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Updated 22 December 2024
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What Israel’s capture of Syrian territory as Assad fell signifies for the Middle East

What Israel’s capture of Syrian territory as Assad fell signifies for the Middle East
  • Israeli government’s action viewed as taking advantage of a neighbor at a time of distraction and weakness
  • Takeover of demilitarized buffer zone deprives Syria of more fertile land and water resources of Golan

LONDON: In the early hours of Sunday, Dec. 8, shortly after a coalition of opposition forces seized Damascus and toppled Bashar Assad’s regime, Israeli troops infringed on Syrian territory for the first time in 50 years, marking another breach of international law.

They advanced into a demilitarized zone along the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and seized roughly another 400 square kilometers of Syrian territory.

The move has drawn international criticism, with Jordan slamming the deployment of Israeli troops in the Golan as a violation of international law.

Similarly, Saudi Arabia condemned the move, saying it confirms Israel’s “determination to sabotage Syria’s chances of restoring its security, stability and territorial integrity.”

Other countries in the region, including Iran, Iraq, the UAE, Qatar, and Turkiye, also denounced Israel’s land grab in Syria. Qatar described it as “a dangerous development and a blatant attack on Syria’s sovereignty and unity.”

Israel’s foreign ministry responded with a statement accusing Turkiye of taking control of about 15 percent of Syria’s territory through three military operations from 2016 onward, and establishing armed proxy groups to control this territory, where “Turkish currency is in use, and Turkish bank branches and postal services have been operating.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the takeover of the buffer zone as a decision taken to prevent “any hostile force from establishing itself on our border.”

He made the announcement from the Golan Heights, saying the fall of the Assad regime had rendered a Syria-Israel disengagement agreement dating back to 1974 obsolete and that “Syrian forces have abandoned their positions.”

Media reports, as well as the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), noted that Syrian forces abandoned their positions in Quneitra province — part of which lies within the buffer zone — just hours before Assad’s fall.

Antonio Guterres, UN secretary-general, insisted on Thursday that the 1974 agreement “remains fully in force,” calling on both Israel and Syria to uphold its terms.

Under that agreement, a UN-monitored demilitarized zone separated the Israeli-occupied territory from the area controlled by Syria.

The UN criticized Israel’s capture of the buffer zone, saying it constituted a violation of the 1974 agreement. Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for Guterres, said on Dec. 9 that “there should be no military forces or activities in the area of separation.”

The Golan Heights is a rocky plateau 60 kilometers southwest of Syria’s capital, Damascus. It abuts Mount Hermon, also known as Jabal Al-Sheikh, the highest mountain on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Israel seized the Golan from Syria in the closing stages of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, later thwarted a Syrian attempt to retake it during the 1973 Middle East war, and unilaterally annexed it in 1981 — a move that was not recognized by the international community.

Following Assad’s downfall on Dec. 8, the Israeli military also seized control of the highest peak of Mount Hermon on the Syrian side.

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This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)

This strategic summit, located just over 35 kilometers from Damascus and straddling the border between Syria and Lebanon, offers a commanding vantage point and firing range over the surrounding ridges, making it a crucial asset for observation and defense.

Michael Mason, director of the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics (LSE), believes the occupied Golan Heights “is a strategically important area for Israel because of its geographical location and topography.”

“The elevation of the Golan contributes significantly to Israel’s military and surveillance capabilities in the north,” he told Arab News.

“It is not surprising, therefore, that the Israeli military seized the Syrian side of Jabal Al-Shaykh (Mount Hermon) earlier this month, and Israel has unilaterally occupied the UN-monitored demilitarized zone created in 1974.”

He added: “Politically, occupation of the Golan feeds the ultra-nationalist agenda of a Greater Israel and will encourage claims for further territorial expansion.”

Firas Modad, a Middle East analyst and founder of Modad Geopolitics, agrees that by seizing the Golan and Mount Hermon, Israel has “expanded its high grounds.”

By grabbing the highest peak of Mount Hermon, the Israelis now “overlook pretty much the entire region,” which “helps them with things like detecting drones and being able to do aerial surveillance a little bit better,” he told Arab News.

“It means that drones coming in from Iraq or from Lebanon are easier to detect for them.”

FASTFACTS

• The Golan Heights is considered occupied under international law and UN resolutions since 1967.

• In 2019, the US officially recognized Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights.

• Syria’s attempt to retake the Golan in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war was thwarted. • There are more than 30 Israeli settlements in the occupied Golan Heights.


Modad added that capturing the Golan Heights also puts Damascus in an “untenable military position” for Israel as the Syrian capital becomes “closer to artillery range.”

He believes this places “the new government in Syria” in “an extremely vulnerable position.”

Ahmed Al-Sharaa, head of the new Syrian administration, said in an interview with The Times on Monday that war-weary Syria remains “committed to the 1974 agreement and we are prepared to return the UN (monitors).”

“We do not want any conflict whether with Israel or anyone else and we will not let Syria be used as a launchpad for attacks,” he added. “The Syrian people need a break, and the strikes must end, and Israel has to pull back to its previous positions.”

According to media reports, the Israeli military launched about 600 strikes across Syria in roughly eight days following the ousting of Assad. The Times of Israel news website reported that the Israeli military estimated it had destroyed 80 percent of the former regime’s strategic military capabilities.

More than 13 years of war and economic hardship have eroded Syria’s infrastructure and pushed 90 percent of the population below the poverty line, according to UN figures.

Some analysts warn that it could take 10 years for Syria to return to its 2011 GDP level and up to two decades to fully rebuild, Deutsche Welle reported.

The Golan Heights area is also known for its fertile land and vital water sources, including the Yarmouk River, which feeds the Jordan River.

Modad, the Middle East analyst, said Israel’s occupation of the area ensures its control over critical waterways.

“The key story is the Israelis gaining full control over the Yarmouk,” he said. “Yarmouk feeds into the Jordan River — it essentially becomes the Jordan River. It’s the river’s main tributary.”

He added: “And so, what the Israelis have done is that they’ve seized a very important water resource from the Syrians and placed it completely under their control,” giving them “leverage over Jordan by being able to cut off the water supply.”

Netanyahu stated on Dec. 9 that the Syrian Golan “will be part of the State of Israel for eternity,” despite initially describing his army’s presence in the buffer zone as “a temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found.”

This territorial expansion, according to Modad, also increases Israel’s control over the Syria-Lebanon border, enhancing its ability to monitor and control traffic between the two countries.

“If they (the Israelis) keep going down the slopes of the East Lebanon mountain, that puts them in a very advantageous position to besiege Hezbollah,” the Lebanese militant group that has been fighting Israel since the 1980s.

“And the expanded territory that they’ve taken means they are much higher than Hezbollah in parts of Lebanon, including Shebaa, Rashaya and Hasbaya, all the way to the western Bekaa.”

This, he added, enhances the Israelis’ “ability to survey Hezbollah’s weapons transfers as part of their more aggressive enforcement of (Resolution) 1701 and of the ceasefire agreement,” which was signed on Nov. 27 to end the Israel-Hezbollah conflict that began on Oct. 8, 2023, and escalated into a deadly Israeli bombing campaign across Lebanon.

On Dec. 15, Netanyahu announced that his government had approved the “demographic development” of the occupied Syria territory, aiming to double the Israeli population there.

About 31,000 Israeli settlers live in dozens of illegal settlements in the Golan, alongside Syrian minority groups, including some 24,000 Druze, according to a Foreign Policy report.

A 2010 research by the Israeli daily Haaretz found that during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and in the aftermath, some 130,000 Syrians fled or were expelled from the Golan by the Israeli army.

“Strengthening the Golan is strengthening the State of Israel, and it is especially important at this time,” Netanyahu said. “We will continue to hold onto it, cause it to blossom, and settle in it.”

LSE’s Mason believes that with the planned expansion of Israeli settlements, “the indigenous Arab population of the occupied Golan Heights — most of whom still identify as Syrian and have rejected Israeli citizenship — are likely to face intensified social and economic discrimination; for example, further loss of land and water resources.”

On Dec. 19, Israeli forces set up a position at an abandoned Syrian army base in the village of Maariyah, located outside the UN-patrolled zone on the western edge of Syria’s southern Daraa province.

Residents told the Associated Press news agency that Israeli soldiers, who advanced about 1 kilometer into Maariyah, blocked local farmers from accessing their fields.

The following day, protesters gathered to demand the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Maariyah. In response, Israeli soldiers opened fire, wounding a young Syrian man in the leg, according to the SOHR.

Amid these tensions, UN chief Guterres stressed that “in the occupied Syrian Golan, there should be no military forces in the area of separation other than ‌UN peacekeepers – period.”

He added in a post on X that “Syria’s sovereignty, territorial unity, and integrity must be fully restored, and all acts of aggression must come to an immediate end.”

However, Mason believes that, despite experiencing discrimination under Israel’s occupation, the indigenous people of the Golan have not endured the same violent repression as Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

He said that while the Druze and Christian communities in the Golan Heights are “subject to discriminatory treatment compared to Jewish settlers,” they “have not yet faced the sustained level of systematic human rights abuses and violent repression suffered by Palestinians in the West Bank.”

 


Israeli strikes kill 14 in Gaza and destroy heavy equipment needed to clear rubble

Israeli strikes kill 14 in Gaza and destroy heavy equipment needed to clear rubble
Updated 8 sec ago
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Israeli strikes kill 14 in Gaza and destroy heavy equipment needed to clear rubble

Israeli strikes kill 14 in Gaza and destroy heavy equipment needed to clear rubble
  • An Israeli strike on Jabaliya municipality's parking garage destroyed nine bulldozers provided by Egypt and Qatar
  • The strikes also destroyed a water tanker and a mobile generator provided by aid groups

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed at least 14 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and destroyed bulldozers and other heavy equipment that had been supplied by mediators to clear rubble.
Israel’s 18-month offensive against Hamas has destroyed vast areas of Gaza, raising fears that much of it may never be rebuilt. The territory already had a shortage of heavy equipment, which is also needed to rescue people from the rubble after Israeli strikes and to clear vital roads.
A municipality in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza said a strike on its parking garage destroyed nine bulldozers provided by Egypt and Qatar, which helped broker the ceasefire that took hold in January. Israel ended the truce last month, renewing its bombardment and ground operations and sealing the territory’s 2 million Palestinians off from all imports, including food, fuel and medical supplies.
The strikes also destroyed a water tanker and a mobile generator provided by aid groups, and a truck used to pump sewage, the Jabaliya Al-Nazla municipality said.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strikes.
Israeli strikes kill 14, mostly children
An Israeli airstrike early Tuesday destroyed a multistory home in the southern city of Khan Younis, killing nine people, including four women and four children, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies. The dead included a 2-year-old girl and her parents.
“They were asleep, sleeping in God’s peace. They had nothing to do with anything,” said Awad Dahliz, the slain girl’s grandfather. “What is the fault of this innocent child?“
A separate strike in the built-up Jabaliya refugee camp killed three children and their parents, according to the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service.
Israel’s air and ground war has killed over 51,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the ministry.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 people hostage. They are still holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Hamas has said it will only free the remaining hostages in return for the release of Palestinian prisoners, a full Israeli withdrawal and a lasting ceasefire. Israel has said it will keep fighting until the hostages are returned and Hamas has been either destroyed or disarmed and sent into exile. It has pledged to hold onto so-called security zones in Gaza indefinitely.


Syria detains two leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad

Updated 9 min 1 sec ago
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Syria detains two leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad

Syria detains two leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad
The group said the men had been detained “without any explanation of the reasons“
An official from Syria’s interior ministry confirmed the detentions

DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities have detained two senior members of the Palestinian militant faction Islamic Jihad, which took part in the October 2023 attacks on Israel from Gaza, the group’s armed wing and a Syrian official said on Tuesday.
In a statement, the Al Quds Brigades said Khaled Khaled, who heads Islamic Jihad’s operations in Syria, and Yasser Al-Zafari, who heads its organizational committee, had been in Syrian custody for five days.
The group said the men had been detained “without any explanation of the reasons” and “in a manner we would not have hoped to see from brothers,” and called for their release.
An official from Syria’s interior ministry confirmed the detentions, but did not respond to follow-up questions on why the pair had been arrested. A Palestinian source in Damascus also confirmed the arrests.
Islamic Jihad joined its ally Hamas, Gaza’s ruling group, in the attack on Israel in 2023. It is a recipient of Iranian funding and know-how, and has long had foreign headquarters in Syria and Lebanon.
But its allies in both countries have recently suffered devastating blows: an Israeli air and ground offensive last year severely weakened the Lebanese Iranian-backed group Hezbollah, and Syria’s leader Bashar Assad, closely allied to Tehran, was ousted by a rebel offensive last year.
The new Islamist leadership in Damascus has cut diplomatic ties with Iran and is hoping to rebuild Syria’s regional and international backing, not least to eliminate sanctions and fund reconstruction after a brutal 14-year civil war.
The US has given Syria a list of conditions to fulfill in exchange for partial sanctions relief, Reuters reported last month. Sources said one of the conditions was keeping Iran-backed Palestinian groups at a distance.
Israel has carried out strikes against Islamic Jihad in Syria for years. Last month, it said it struck a building on the outskirts of Damascus that it said Islamic Jihad was using as a command center, an assertion denied by the group.

Gaza ‘land of desperation’ after 50 days of total siege: UN

Gaza ‘land of desperation’ after 50 days of total siege: UN
Updated 22 April 2025
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Gaza ‘land of desperation’ after 50 days of total siege: UN

Gaza ‘land of desperation’ after 50 days of total siege: UN
  • UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini: ‘Hunger is spreading and deepening, deliberate and manmade’
  • ‘Humanitarian aid is being used as a bargaining chip and a weapon of war’

GENEVA: The United Nations warned Tuesday that Gaza was facing deepening hunger 50 days into a total Israeli blockade on all aid entering the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
“Gaza has become a land of desperation,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, said on X.
“Hunger is spreading and deepening, deliberate and manmade.”
After 18 months of devastating war and an Israeli blockade on aid since March 2, the UN has warned of a dire humanitarian situation for the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Palestinian territory.
Israel has accused the Palestinian militant group of diverting aid, which Hamas denies.
The heads of 12 major aid organizations warned last Thursday that “famine is not just a risk, but likely rapidly unfolding in almost all parts” of the territory.
“You can see a clear tendency toward total disaster,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA told reporters in Geneva Tuesday.
“It is true that right now is probably the worst humanitarian situation we have seen throughout the war in Gaza.”
In his post on X, Lazzarini questioned “how much longer until hollow words of condemnation will translate into action to lift the siege, resume a ceasefire and save whatever is left of humanity?”
The UNRWA chief decried that two million people in Gaza, most of them women and children, “are undergoing collective punishment.”
“The wounded, sick and elderly are deprived of medical supplies and care,” he said, even as humanitarian organizations like UNRWA have thousands of trucks waiting with supplies that risk expiring.
“Humanitarian aid is being used as a bargaining chip and a weapon of war,” he charged.
“The siege must be lifted, supplies must flow in, the hostages must be released, the ceasefire must resume.”


Hamas team heads to Cairo for Gaza talks as Israel strikes kill 26

Hamas team heads to Cairo for Gaza talks as Israel strikes kill 26
Updated 22 April 2025
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Hamas team heads to Cairo for Gaza talks as Israel strikes kill 26

Hamas team heads to Cairo for Gaza talks as Israel strikes kill 26
  • The renewed effort follows Hamas’s rejection last week of Israel’s latest proposal
  • Gaza’s civil defense agency said that a spate of Israeli air strikes since dawn on Tuesday killed at least 26 people

CAIRO: A Hamas delegation departed for Cairo to discuss “new ideas” aimed at securing a ceasefire in Gaza, an official from the group said, as Israeli air strikes killed 26 people across the territory Tuesday.
The renewed effort follows Hamas’s rejection last week of Israel’s latest proposal to secure the release of hostages still held in Gaza.
Talks have so far failed to produce any breakthrough since Israel resumed its air and ground assault on Gaza from March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire.
“The delegation will meet with Egyptian officials to discuss new ideas aimed at reaching a ceasefire,” the Hamas official said, adding the team included the group’s chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya.
The latest round of discussions come a day after newly appointed US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, urged Hamas to accept a deal that would secure the release of hostages in exchange for the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“When that happens, and hostages are released which is an urgent matter for all of us, then we hope that the humanitarian aid will flow and flow freely knowing it will be done without Hamas being able to confiscate and abuse their own people,” Huckabee said in a video statement.
Israel blocked all aid to Gaza on March 2, days before launching its renewed offensive.
Israel has accused the Palestinian militant group of diverting aid, which Hamas denies.
“Gaza has become a land of desperation,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, said on X on Tuesday.
“Hunger is spreading and deepening, deliberate and manmade.... Humanitarian aid is being used as a bargaining chip and a weapon of war.”
Qatar, with the United States and Egypt, brokered a truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas which began on January 19 and enabled a surge in aid, alongside the exchange of hostages and prisoners.
But that truce collapsed after disagreements emerged over the terms of the next stage.
Hamas had insisted that negotiations be held for a second phase of the truce, leading to a permanent end to the war, as outlined in the January framework.
Israel, by contrast, sought an extension of the first phase.
Following the impasse, Israel blocked aid to Gaza and resumed its military campaign.
Most recently, Israel proposed a 45-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of 10 living hostages — an offer Hamas rejected last week.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said that a spate of Israeli air strikes since dawn on Tuesday killed at least 26 people across the territory.
Among the fatalities were nine people when a house was struck in central Khan Yunis, Mohammad Mughayyir, a senior official from the agency told AFP, adding that six others remain trapped under the rubble.
More than 10 houses were also destroyed in the strikes, civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal earlier told AFP, adding that an air strike also destroyed bulldozers and equipment belonging to the Jabalia municipality in northern Gaza.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the latest strikes.
At least 1,890 people have been killed in Gaza since the military resumed its offensive, bringing the total death toll since the war erupted to at least 51,266, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which ignited the war, resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.


Islamist leader among 2 dead in air strikes on Lebanon

Islamist leader among 2 dead in air strikes on Lebanon
Updated 30 min 44 sec ago
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Islamist leader among 2 dead in air strikes on Lebanon

Islamist leader among 2 dead in air strikes on Lebanon
  • Jamaa Islamiya in a statement announced the death of Hussein Atwi, calling him “an academic leader and university professor”
  • Also Tuesday, Lebanon’s health ministry said an “Israeli enemy” strike in south Lebanon’s Tyre district killed one person

BEIRUT: A leader from Hamas-aligned Jamaa Islamiya was killed Tuesday in an Israeli strike, the Lebanese Islamist group and Israel’s military said, as the health ministry reported another dead in a separate raid.
Israel has continued to carry out regular strikes on Lebanon despite a November truce with militant group Hezbollah that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities between the foes including two months of all-out war.
Lebanon’s civil defense said “an Israeli drone targeted a car” near the coastal town of Damour, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Beirut, and rescuers recovered a man’s body.
Jamaa Islamiya in a statement announced the death of Hussein Atwi, calling him “an academic leader and university professor” and saying an Israeli drone strike “targeted his car as he was traveling to his workplace in Beirut.”
The Israeli army said the air force had “eliminated” Atwi, calling him “a significant terrorist in the Jamaa Islamiya terrorist organization.”
A Lebanese security official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said Atwi was a leader of Jamaa Islamiya’s armed wing, the Al-Fajr Forces.
The official said Israel had previously targeted Atwi during its recent war with Hezbollah.
An AFP photographer saw the charred wreckage of a car at the scene. The Lebanese army had cordoned off the area and forensic teams were conducting an inspection.
Jamaa Islamiya, closely linked to both Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, claimed responsibility for multiple attacks against Israel before the November 27 ceasefire.
The Israeli military said Atwi had been “involved in planning and advancing terrorist activity from Lebanon into Israeli territory” and had operated “in coordination with Hamas in Lebanon.”
It said he had “carried out rocket attacks, coordinated terrorist infrastructure... and advanced attempts to infiltrate into Israeli territory.”
Also Tuesday, Lebanon’s health ministry said an “Israeli enemy” strike in south Lebanon’s Tyre district killed one person.
Under the truce, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters north of Lebanon’s Litani River and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israel was to withdraw all its forces from south Lebanon, but troops remain in five positions that it deems “strategic.”
Israel on Sunday said it had killed two senior Hezbollah members in strikes on Lebanon.
Lebanese authorities have said Israeli fire has killed some 190 people since the ceasefire.
After unclaimed rocket fire against Israel in late March, Lebanon’s army said last week it had arrested several Lebanese and Palestinian suspects, while a security official said they included three Hamas members.