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

Analysis

ANAN TELLO
December 21, 2024

ARAB NEWS

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 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.”

In Israeli-occupied south Syria, villagers feel abandoned

People look on as Israeli soldiers patrol in the Syrian town of Jubata Al-Khashab, in the UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, on December 20, 2024. 

AFP
December 21, 2024

Most villagers have cloistered themselves inside their homes since the troops arrived. A few look on through windows and from rooftops

QUNEITRA, Syria: In the towns and villages of southern Syria that Israel has occupied since the overthrow of longtime strongman Bashar Assad, soldiers and residents size each other up from a distance.

The main street of the village of Jabata Al-Khashab is largely deserted as a foot patrol of Israeli troops passes through it.

Most villagers have cloistered themselves inside their homes since the troops arrived. A few look on through windows and from rooftops.

It is the same story in nearby Baath City, named for the now suspended political party that ran Syria for more than 60 years until Assad’s ouster by Islamist-led rebels earlier this month.

The town’s main street has been heavily damaged by the passage of a column of Israeli tanks.

The street furniture has been reduced to mangled metal, aand broken off branches from roadside trees litter the highway.

“Look at all the destruction the Israeli tanks have caused to our streets and road signs,” said 51-year-old doctor Arsan Arsan.

“People around here are very angry about the Israeli incursion. We are for peace, but on condition that Israel pulls back to the armistice line.”

Israel announced on December 8 that its troops were crossing the armistice line and were occupying the UN-patrolled buffer zone that has separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the strategic Golan Heights since 1974.

The announcement, which was swiftly condemned by the United Nations, came the same day that the rebels entered Damascus.

Israel said it was a defensive measure prompted by the security vacuum created by the Assad government’s abrupt collapse.

Israeli troops swiftly occupied much of the buffer zone, including the summit of Syria’s highest peak, Mount Hermon.

The Israeli military has since confirmed that its troops have also been operating beyond the buffer zone in other parts of southwest Syria.

At a security briefing on Mount Hermon on Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz spoke of the importance of “completing preparations... for the possibility of a prolonged presence” in the buffer zone.

He added that the 2,814-meter (9,232-foot) peak provided “observation and deterrence” against both Hezbollah in Lebanon and the new authorities in Damascus who “claim to present a moderate front but are affiliated with the most extreme Islamist factions.”

Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that led the rebel overthrow of Assad, has its roots in Al-Qaeda and remains proscribed as a terrorist organization by several Western governments, even though it has sought to moderate its image in recent years.

On the road south from Damascus to the provincial capital Quneitra, an AFP correspondent saw no sign of the transitional government or its fighters. All of the checkpoints that had controlled access to the province for decades lay abandoned.
Quneitra’s streets too were largely deserted as residents stayed indoors, peeking out only occasionally at passing Israeli patrols.

Israeli soldiers have raised the Star of David on several hilltops overlooking the town.
HTS leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa has said that Israel’s crossing of the armistice line on the Golan “threatens a new unjustified escalation in the region.”

But he added in a statement late last week that “the general exhaustion in Syria after years of war and conflict does not allow us to enter new conflicts.”

That position has left many in the south feeling abandoned to fend for themselves.
“We are just 400 meters (yards) from the Israeli tanks... the children are scared by the incursion,” said Yassin Al-Ali, who lives on the edge of the village of Al-Hamidiyah, not far from Baath City.

He said that instead of celebrating their victory in Damascus, the transitional government and its fighters should come to the aid of Quneitra province.

“What’s happening here really should make those celebrating in Umayyad Square pause for a moment... and come here to support us in the face of the Israeli occupation,” Ali said.

Syrian soldiers distance themselves from Assad in return for promised amnesty

Updated 22 December 2024

AP
December 22, 202401:13

Lt. Col. Walid Abd Rabbo, who works with the new Interior Ministry, said the army has been dissolved and the interim government has not decided yet on whether those “whose hands are not tainted in blood” can apply to join the military again

DAMASCUS, Syria: Hundreds of former Syrian soldiers on Saturday reported to the country’s new rulers for the first time since Bashar Assad was ousted to answer questions about whether they may have been involved in crimes against civilians in exchange for a promised amnesty and return to civilian life.

The former soldiers trooped to what used to be the head office in Damascus of Assad’s Baath party that had ruled Syria for six decades. They were met with interrogators, former insurgents who stormed Damascus on Dec. 8, and given a list of questions and a registration number. They were free to leave.

Some members of the defunct military and security services waiting outside the building told The Associated Press that they had joined Assad’s forces because it meant a stable monthly income and free medical care.

The fall of Assad took many by surprise as tens of thousands of soldiers and members of security services failed to stop the advancing insurgents. Now in control of the country, and Assad in exile in Russia, the new authorities are investigating atrocities by Assad’s forces, mass graves and an array of prisons run by the military, intelligence and security agencies notorious for systematic torture, mass executions and brutal conditions.

Lt. Col. Walid Abd Rabbo, who works with the new Interior Ministry, said the army has been dissolved and the interim government has not decided yet on whether those “whose hands are not tainted in blood” can apply to join the military again. The new leaders have vowed to punish those responsible for crimes against Syrians under Assad.

Several locations for the interrogation and registration of former soldiers were opened in other parts of Syria in recent days.

“Today I am coming for the reconciliation and don’t know what will happen next,” said Abdul-Rahman Ali, 43, who last served in the northern city of Aleppo until it was captured by insurgents in early December.

“We received orders to leave everything and withdraw,” he said. “I dropped my weapon and put on civilian clothes,” he said, adding that he walked 14 hours until he reached the central town of Salamiyeh, from where he took a bus to Damascus.
Ali, who was making 700,000 pounds ($45) a month in Assad’s army, said he would serve his country again.
Inside the building, men stood in short lines in front of four rooms where interrogators asked each a list of questions on a paper.

“I see regret in their eyes,” an interrogator told AP as he questioned a soldier who now works at a shawarma restaurant in the Damascus suburb of Harasta. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to media.

The interrogator asked the soldier where his rifle is and the man responded that he left it at the base where he served. He then asked for and was handed the soldier’s military ID.
“He has become a civilian,” the interrogator said, adding that the authorities will carry out their own investigation before questioning the same soldier again within weeks to make sure there are no changes in the answers that he gave on Saturday.

The interrogator said after nearly two hours that he had quizzed 20 soldiers and the numbers are expected to increase in the coming days.