Where to next for Israel and Syria after Assad's downfall?

With the fall of the regime headed by dictator Bashar Assad in Syria, Israel is watching closely to see what happens next in Syria. Analysts say that changes in the neighboring country present both opportunities and risks.

Over the weekend, Israeli fighter jets attacked over 100 targets in Syria, monitoring groups said. The Israeli attacks targeted Syrian military infrastructure, including air bases, sites where rocket research was allegedly undertaken and where chemical weapons were supposedly stored. Among the targets was a location in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

"We attacked strategic weapons systems, like, for example, remaining chemical weapons, or long-range missiles and rockets, so that they will not fall in the hands of extremists," Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Saar, told reporters in Jerusalem on Monday, outlining some of the risks that the country foresees.

Israeli troops then moved into a demilitarized buffer zone that separates Israel and Syria and which is patrolled by UN peacekeepers.

Reports suggested they then also moved beyond the buffer zone, which is about 40 kilometers from Damascus. This would mean they had moved further into Syria than they had ever done since the signing of a disengagement agreement between the two countries in 1974. 

On Tuesday morning, three sources told Reuters news agency that Israeli troops were now just 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) southwest of Damascus. An Israeli military spokesperson denied this. 

Israeli troops inside Syria?

Israel occupied the Golan Heights in 1967 and annexed the region in 1981. Much of the international community, except the US, considers the area part of Syria and that Israel is occupying it illegally.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu explained the move was necessary because the Syrian military — ostensibly loyal to the Assad regime — had withdrawn from the area, which meant the "collapse of the Separation of Forces agreement from 1974 between Israel and Syria."

Netanyahu said the move by Israeli troops was temporary and would only last until a new arrangement can be made.

"If we can establish neighborly relations and peaceful relations with the new forces emerging in Syria, that's our desire," he added at a press conference in Jerusalem. "But if we do not, we will do whatever it takes to defend the State of Israel and the border of Israel."

But he then also said that "the Golan will be part of the State of Israel for eternity."

Growing criticism

There's been growing criticism of the reported Israeli move further into Syria. The UN said that any such move violates the 1974 agreement.

Israel's staunchest ally, the US, has confirmed that the move must only be temporary. The foreign minister of Jordan, Israel's northern neighbor, condemned the troop movement, and Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry said the Israeli troop movements meant that Israel appeared determined to "sabotage Syria's chances of restoring its security, stability and territorial integrity."

"Even if it's temporary, what is the purpose?" Eyal Zisser, an expert on Syria and vice rector of Tel Aviv University, told DW. "I can understand why they bomb and attack chemical weapons in Syria that were left by the regime. But to move troops ahead. The Syrian mood is not against Israel, is not directed in the Israeli direction at all. Nobody mentioned Israel. So why force yourself [into the picture]?"

What next for Israel and Syria?

"Assad's fall is the Middle Eastern equivalent to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Not because of him, a weak and failed dictator, but because of what he emblematizes. Hezbollah was badly beaten by Israel, and the Iranians took a licking as well — and they were afraid of a humiliating defeat in Syria," wrote Israeli journalist Nadav Eyal in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Sunday.

He also noted that most of Israel's intelligence services, including military intelligence, were taken by surprise by the speed at which the Syrian regime collapsed.

"It was a surprise for everyone, especially for Bashar Assad, the Iranians, Russia and Hezbollah," Zisser, the Tel Aviv University expert, told DW. "One point that I would like to emphasize is that it was not a revolution or protest or revolt. It was an invasion of an army that was built by [Syrian rebel leader Abu Mohammed] al-Golani under the auspices of Turkey."

The "positive side" for Israel, he added, was that "Bashar Assad was a critical link between Iran and Hezbollah. And now Iran has no more Syrian backup, so it's a major development."

Weakening Hezbollah, Iran

The general view in Israel is that the advances by al-Golani's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other allied groups would not have happened without Israel. 

Since the Gaza-based militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, Israel had been working in a "systematic, measured and organized fashion" to dismantle Hamas' allies in the Iranian axis, Netanyahu said. He repeated his claim that Assad's fall was the "direct result of the heavy blows we landed on Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran" and said that Israel was "transforming the face of the Middle East."

"This would not have happened without Iran and Hezbollah's failure in Lebanon," Amos Harel wrote in Israeli daily Haaretz. "The rebels in Syria identified the weakness and confusion in the Iranian axis and rushed to hit its weak link."

Experts say the surprisingly swift end of the Assad regime was not just due to Israel's weakening of Iranian-allied groups. Russia has been an ally of the Assad family's regime for years, has an important naval base in Syria and in 2015, intervened in Syria's civil war with massive air campaigns. But Russia is currently bogged down in Ukraine, with many of its fighter jets moved back to eastern Europe. And the Russians seemed unwilling to intervene again, although they have since allowed Assad and his family, who are apparently in Moscow, to claim asylum in Russia.

While the dangers presented by Iran in Syria and Hezbollah may have decreased for the time being, the nature of the next Syrian government could still pose long-term challenges for Israel. Groups such as HTS are rooted in extremist ideology and their behavior is difficult to predict in the short term.

"In the long run, with Bashar Assad, you knew exactly what was happening, at least in the Golan Heights," said Zisser. "Now it is unknown. And people in Israel are worried, exactly like in Jordan or other countries."