Israeli Expansion in Syria Raises Ire  12/15 06:11

   

   BEIRUT (AP) -- Qassim Hamadeh woke to the sounds of gunfire and explosions 
in his village of Beit Jin in southwestern Syria last month. Within hours, he 
had lost two sons, a daughter-in-law and his 4-year-old and 10-year-old 
grandsons. The five were among 13 villagers killed that day by Israeli forces.

   Israeli troops had raided the village -- not for the first time -- seeking 
to capture, as they said, members of a militant group planning attacks into 
Israel. Israel said militants opened fire at the troops, wounding six, and that 
troops returned fire and brought in air support.

   Hamadeh, like others in Beit Jin, dismissed Israel's claims of militants 
operating in the village. The residents said armed villagers confronted Israeli 
soldiers they saw as invaders, only to be met with Israeli tank and artillery 
fire, followed by a drone strike. The government in Damascus called it a 
"massacre."

   The raid and similar recent Israeli actions inside Syria have increased 
tensions, frustrated locals and also scuttled chances -- despite U.S. pressure 
-- of any imminent thaw in relations between the two neighbors.

   An expanding Israeli presence

   An Israeli-Syrian rapprochement seemed possible last December, after Sunni 
Islamist-led rebels overthrew autocratic Syrian President Bashar Assad, a close 
ally of Iran, Israel's archenemy.

   Syria's interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, who led the rebels who took over 
the country, said he has no desire for a conflict with Israel. But Israel was 
suspicious, mistrusting al-Sharaa because of his militant past and his group's 
history of aligning with al-Qaida.

   Israeli forces quickly moved to impose a new reality on the ground. They 
mobilized into the U.N.-mandated buffer zone in southern Syria next to the 
Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war and 
later annexed -- a move not recognized by most of the international community.

   Israeli forces erected checkpoints and military installations, including on 
a hilltop that overlooks wide swaths of Syria. They set up landing pads on 
strategic Mt. Hermon nearby. Israeli reconnaissance drones frequently fly over 
surrounding Syrian towns, with residents often sighting Israeli tanks and 
Humvee vehicles patrolling those areas.

   Israel has said its presence is temporary to clear out pro-Assad remnants 
and militants -- to protect Israel from attacks. But it has given no indication 
its forces would leave anytime soon. Talks between the two countries to reach a 
security agreement have so far yielded no result.

   Ghosts of Lebanon and Gaza

   The events in neighboring Lebanon, which shares a border with both Israel 
and Syria, and the two-year war in Gaza between Israel and the militant 
Palestinian group Hamas have also raised concerns among Syrians that Israel 
plans a permanent land grab in southern Syria.

   Israeli forces still have a presence in southern Lebanon, over a year since 
a U.S.-brokered ceasefire halted the latest Israel-Hezbollah war. That war 
began a day after Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, with 
Hezbollah firing rockets into Israel in solidarity with its ally Hamas.

   Israel's operations in Lebanon, which included bombardment across the tiny 
country and a ground incursion last year, have severely weakened Hezbollah.

   Today, Israel still controls five hilltop points in southern Lebanon, 
launches near-daily airstrikes against alleged Hezbollah targets and flies 
reconnaissance drones over the country, sometimes also carrying out overnight 
ground incursions.

   In Gaza, where U.S. President Donald Trump's 20-point ceasefire deal has 
brought about a truce between Israel and Hamas, similar buffer zones under 
Israeli control are planned even after Israel eventually withdraws from the 
more than half of the territory it still controls.

   At a meeting of regional leaders and international figures earlier this 
month in Doha, Qatar, al-Sharaa accused Israel of using imagined threats to 
justify aggressive actions.

   "All countries support an Israeli withdrawal" from Syria to the lines prior 
to Assad's ouster, he said, adding that it was the only way for both Syria and 
Israel to "emerge in a state of safety."

   Syria's myriad problems

   The new leadership in Damascus has had a multitude of challenges since 
ousting Assad.

   Al-Sharaa's government has been unable to implement a deal with local 
Kurdish-led authorities in northeast Syria, and large areas of southern Sweida 
province are now under a de facto administration led by the Druze religious 
minority, following sectarian clashes there in mid-July with local Bedouin 
clans.

   Syrian government forces intervened, effectively siding with the Bedouins. 
Hundreds of civilians, mostly Druze, were killed, many by government fighters. 
Over half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria. Most other 
Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights.

   Israel, which has cast itself as a defender of the Druze, though many of 
them in Syria are critical of its intentions, has also made overtures to Kurds 
in Syria.

   "The Israelis here are pursuing a very dangerous strategy," said Michael 
Young, Senior Editor at the Beirut-based Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East 
Center.

   It contradicts, he added, the positions of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt -- 
and even the United States -- which are "all in agreement that what has to come 
out of this today is a Syrian state that is unified and fairly strong," he 
added.

   Israel and the US at odds over Syria

   In a video released from his office after visiting Israeli troops wounded in 
Beit Jin, barely 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the edge of the U.N. buffer zone, 
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel seeks a "demilitarized 
buffer zone from Damascus to the (U.N.) buffer zone," including Mt. Hermon.

   "It is also possible to reach an agreement with the Syrians, but we will 
stand by our principles in any case," Netanyahu said.

   His strategy has proven to be largely unpopular with the international 
community, including with Washington, which has backed al-Sharaa's efforts to 
consolidate his control across Syria.

   Israel's operations in southern Syria have drawn rare public criticism from 
Trump, who has taken al-Sharaa, once on Washington's terror list, under his 
wing.

   "It is very important that Israel maintain a strong and true dialogue with 
Syria, and that nothing takes place that will interfere with Syria's evolution 
into a prosperous State," Trump said in a post on Truth Social after the Beit 
Jin clashes.

   Syria is also expected to be on the agenda when Netanyahu visits the U.S. 
and meets with Trump later this month.

   Experts doubt Israel will withdraw from Syria anytime soon -- and the new 
government in Damascus has little leverage or power against Israel's much 
stronger military.

   "If you set up landing pads, then you are not here for short-term," Issam 
al-Reiss, a military adviser with the Syrian research group ETANA, said of 
Israeli actions.

   Hamadeh, the laborer from Beit Jin, said he can "no longer bear the 
situation" after losing five of his family.

   Israel, he said, "strikes wherever it wants, it destroys whatever it wants, 
and kills whoever it wants, and no one holds it accountable."