Israel sees groups trying to unify Syria as threat: Report

ISTANBUL

Israel has targeted military sites in southern Syria to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of the new government and also went after "Türkiye-backed groups" trying to unite the country divided by sectarian and ethnic lines, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Tuesday.

Tel Aviv is lobbying world powers to keep the central government in Damascus weak, the WSJ said, adding that since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, Israel has viewed "Türkiye-backed" groups aiming to unify Syria as a threat.

Earlier, Israel announced plans to allocate "more than $1 billion" in support of the Druze in northern Israel. Security analysts believe Israel is using this strategy to persuade the Druze to reject the new Syrian government.

Israel is lobbying world powers for an idea that Syria is a federal state with autonomous ethnic regions, with the southern border areas demilitarized by Tel Aviv.

While Israel’s vision threatens to keep Syria weakened and divided, some experts warn that this could backfire.

“Israel has a legitimate interest in ensuring no threats can emanate against it from Syria. But it also has an interest, as does the US, in seeing if a stable transition in Syria can take hold,” the WSJ quoted Daniel Shapiro, a former US ambassador to Israel, as saying.

The Israeli army continues to hold Syrian territory and intervene aggressively; it is inescapable that Israel will become a potent issue in Syrian domestic politics, Shapiro added.

Some Syrian community leaders, concerned about Israel’s expansionist ambitions, report that Israel has de facto control of Quneitra, one of three Syrian provinces that border Israel.

Certain Druze leaders in Syria fear that Israel’s long-term regional strategy could cause more instability in Syria and deepen divisions within its communities.

On Saturday, tensions erupted in Jaramana, a densely populated suburb near Damascus that is home to a majority of Druze and Christian minority residents, where militia groups refusing to disarm instigated security unrest.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed the Israeli military to prepare to “protect” the area, which they referred to as “Druze.”

This marks a new escalation by Netanyahu's government against Syria’s new administration, which has called for an end to Israel’s violations of the country’s sovereignty.

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt accused the "Zionists" on Monday of using Druze soldiers and officers to repress Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank while seeking to expand into Jabal al-Arab in the Suwayda governorate—the Druze stronghold in Syria.

Jumblatt, the former leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, said: "Zionism is using Druze as soldiers and officers to suppress the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank, and now they want to seize Jabal al-Arab (Druze) in Syria."

“They want to drag some weak-spirited individuals into this. But the people of Syria know what they are doing,” he added, announcing plans to visit Damascus to reaffirm Syria’s role as a reference point for the Druze community.

Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s leader for nearly 25 years, fled to Russia on Dec. 8, ending the Baath Party’s regime, which had been in power since 1963.

The next day, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of the new Syrian administration, who was appointed president on Jan. 29, tasked Mohammed Al-Bashir with forming a government to oversee Syria’s transitional period.

After the fall of the Assad regime, Israel expanded its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights by seizing the demilitarized buffer zone, a move that violated the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria. It also intensified airstrikes targeting Syrian military positions across the country.

Israel’s recent military advances in the Golan Heights, which it has occupied since 1967, have drawn condemnation from the UN and several Arab nations.