Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria was a “direct consequence” of Israel's military campaign against Iran and its ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah.
“This is a historic day in the history of the Middle East,” he said.
But in a sign of the potential danger Israel feels from unknown rulers in Damascus, Netanyahu ordered the army to seize the buffer zone separating the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from the rest of Syria.
“Together with the Minister of Defense, and with the full support of the Cabinet, I yesterday ordered the IDF to take control of the buffer zone and the dominant positions around it,” he said during a visit to the Golan Heights. “We will not allow any hostile power to establish itself on our border.”
It is the first time Israeli troops have been stationed in the buffer zone since a 1974 agreement establishing the Line of Control between Israel and Syria, although they have entered the area for short periods in the past. The buffer zone, a demilitarized area within Syria and administered by the government, was established in 1974 and was guarded by United Nations peacekeepers. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and annexed them in 1981.
Israeli leaders are watching events across the border in Syria with a mixture of fear and joy, as fifty years of détente were turned upside down in a matter of hours.
“We don't know much,” said Boaz Shapira, a researcher at the Alma Foundation, a think tank that focuses on issues in northern Israel. “The situation we have been used to in Syria for the past fifty years – fifty years under the Assad regime – has completely changed.”
Bashar al-Assad was hardly an ally, but there was an agreement that allowed the countries to coexist. Although Israel occasionally provided treatment to victims of the Syrian civil war, it maintained its official neutrality in the conflict. The Israeli military has also targeted the supply lines of Iran and its ally Hezbollah in Syria for years – most notably killing Iranian military commanders in the Iranian consulate in Damascus in April – but avoided attacking the Assad regime itself.
The rapid capture of Damascus by the rebels means that Israeli leaders will have to evaluate the consequences for their own security.
Iran has now lost one of its most important strongholds in the region. That will be cause for celebration in Israel, which has been fighting Iranian-backed forces in Gaza (Hamas) and Lebanon (Hezbollah) since October last year.
Netanyahu, who declared that the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was a step toward changing “the balance of power in the region for years to come,” will see it as furthering that goal.
Mordechai Kedar, who specialized in Syrian affairs during a 25-year career in Israeli military intelligence, said events in Syria were a domino effect of Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel. “It's not just Israel – the entire Middle East will be celebrating,” he told CNN.
A person holds up a Syrian opposition flag in a Druze village in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on December 8, 2024, as men celebrate the fall of the Assad regime. – Stoyan Nenov/Reuters
The collapse of the Assad regime is a “severe blow” to Iran, said Amos Yadlin, a former major general in the Israeli army who also headed the Military Intelligence Directorate.
“The rebels pulling down posters of (Iranian commander Qasem) Soleimani and Nasrallah from the Iranian embassy in Damascus illustrates the severity of the blow to the Axis,” he said. “Rebuilding Hezbollah appears even more difficult with the loss of Syria, which provided a logistical backstop for weapons from Assad, Iran and Russia.”
On the other hand, no one knows exactly – not even in Israel – who are the rebels who now control Syria, and how they will exercise their power.
The offensive was led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former al-Qaeda affiliate. The US government still has a $10 million bounty on the head of its leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, whose real name is Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Kedar said that despite their radical roots, the opening indications were positive. “So far they are quite rational,” he said. “For example, they leave the government to run the country.”
Jolani has called on the rebels to leave state institutions unscathed. “All armed forces in the city of Damascus are strictly prohibited from approaching public institutions, which will remain under the supervision of the former Prime Minister until they are officially handed over, and are also prohibited from firing bullets into the air. ', he wrote on Telegram.
“Here they learn from the mistakes of the Americans in Iraq. They don't want to destroy the country. They want the system to work – of course under different rules and different leadership. This is a very rational way to run the country.”
Yadlin said Jolani had “shown great political sophistication and conquered Syria almost without a fight.”
“In the short term, the rebels do not pose a threat to Israel,” he said. “When he is required to establish his rule in Syria, he will not become involved with the most powerful military force in the region. Israel must shape the rules of the game against Syria in the same aggressive manner as in Lebanon.”
That view is not universal. Israeli Minister for Diaspora and Combating Anti-Semitism, Amichai Chiklisaid, said in a statement that “the bottom line is that most of Syria is now under the control of members of Al-Qaeda and Daesh.” He called on the Israeli army to establish full control within the buffer zone that has existed since 1974 between Israeli- and Syrian-controlled territory.
Israel's top priority will be securing its border with Syria. The IDF said the deployment of troops within the Golan buffer zone was done “to ensure the security of the communities in the Golan Heights and the citizens of Israel.”
Shapira said he doubted Israel would want to provoke the new leaders in Damascus by pushing into the Syrian-controlled Golan. “Taking more territory means we will have to deal with other players who may not be happy about it,” he added.
“There are dozens of different militias,” Shapira said. “It will be quite a challenge for Israel.”
The Israeli military said in its statement on operations in the Golan: “The State of Israel does not interfere in the internal conflict in Syria.”
Israel's top security and political leaders have been largely silent on events in Syria — no doubt, as they evaluate how to respond.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said Assad's ouster highlighted the need “to create a strong regional coalition with Saudi Arabia and the Abraham Accord countries (Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Sudan) to jointly tackle regional instability to tackle. The Iranian axis has been significantly weakened and Israel must strive for a comprehensive political achievement that will also help the country in Gaza and the West Bank.”
This story has been updated with additional developments.
CNN's Abeer Salman and Mike Schwartz in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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