Israel demands complete demilitarisation of southern Syria

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded the complete demilitarisation of much of southern Syria.

It is an announcement that could make conflict between Israel and the new leadership in Syria, after the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad, more likely.

In a speech to Israeli military cadets on Sunday, Netanyahu said that Israel would not allow the forces of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – the Islamist group that led the overthrow of Assad – nor the new Syrian army that is being formed to “enter the area south of Damascus”.

“We demand the complete demilitarisation of southern Syria in the provinces of Quneitra, Deraa and Suweida from the forces of the new regime,” he added. “Likewise, we will not tolerate any threat to the Druze community in southern Syria.”

He also said that Israeli forces would remain indefinitely inside the Syrian territory that they have seized since Assad’s fall last December – which would be a shift in Israeli strategy.

Until now, Israel had described its move into a UN-monitored demilitarised buffer zone in the Golan Heights as a temporary measure to ensure the security of Israelis on the other side.

The rationale appeared to be to prevent extremist groups from moving down to the Golan in the power vacuum.

But with his latest comments, Netanyahu has made it clear that he believes that the new authorities in Syria – with their background in jihadism – could represent a similar danger.

Israel seized most of the Golan from Syria during the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed. The move was not recognised internationally, although the US did so in 2019.

Syria’s new interim President, HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, has tried to reassure Israel that he does not want conflict and that he is ready to uphold the long-standing disengagement agreement between the two countries concluded after another war in 1973.

He has also stressed that he will not allow Syria to be used as a base for attacks against Israel.

But Sharaa has also called on Israel to withdraw from the buffer zone it has taken, as he tries to assert sovereignty across the whole of Syria’s fractured landscape.

Clearly, Netanyahu does not trust these assurances.

Like much of the international community, the Israeli prime minister is waiting to see if Sharaa makes good on his moderate, emollient stance in action as well as words.

From the perspective of the new Syrian leadership, freeing the country from the influence of all the foreign powers that jockeyed for position during the long years of civil war is seen as vital to ensuring a more positive future for the country and a definitive break with the past.

Some foreign players, such as Iran and Russia, have seen for now at least the curtailment of the overweening influence they once had.

Under President Donald Trump, the US might also further disengage from Syria – a role which has helped underpin Kurdish-led forces in the north-east of the country.

There has, though, been growing influence from Turkey – which provided essential support for HTS in its lightning campaign against Assad.

How big a part it chooses to play could be a determining factor in how Syria develops in the post-Assad era.

But Israel may present a more immediate challenge to the independence of Syria’s new leadership.

To have Israeli troops increasingly infringing on the country’s territory – as well as carrying out numerous strikes on targets associated with what’s left of Assad’s military arsenal – does not fit with the vision of a re-unified, sovereign state that Sharaa is trying to convince Syrians both inside and outside the country that his leadership can provide.

Netanyahu’s move to forbid Syrian forces from operating freely within the country’s borders may be a step too far for the new order in Damascus to stomach, however non-confrontational an image it is trying to maintain.