Latest news with #Syrian-Israeli
Al-Ahram Weekly
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Peace and moderation in Syria - World - Al-Ahram Weekly
It has not escaped the new Syrian leadership that the confrontation with Israel has entered a new phase. Syrian strength is at its nadir. The country cannot undertake any military confrontation with any party in its vicinity, especially given its complete focus on domestic security and the restoration of peace across the country. The Syrian-Israeli conflict also requires a fresh approach that takes into account recent developments in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, including Israel's destruction of the core of the Axis of Resistance, which comprised the former Syrian regime, Iran, Hizbullah in Lebanon, and Hamas. Since the fall of Bashar Al-Assad regime, the major European powers and the Gulf states have hastened to embrace the new Syria. Particularly remarkable was Washington's 180-degree shift with its blanket lifting of all sanctions on the Syrian opposition. This was accompanied by expressions of hope from the US president and senior officials that Syria would quickly become a strong and effective force in a new and dynamic Middle East, contributing to spreading peace and development in the region. Israel has conducted more than 500 air raids against military targets in Syria since the overthrow of Al-Assad, who was backed by Iran. Israeli forces also swept into and occupied the buffer zone that had been monitored by UN peacekeeping forces since the Syrian-Israeli disengagement treaty of 1974. According to some military observers, Israel has destroyed 70 to 80 per cent of Syria's strategic weapons as well as the entirety of its naval and air forces. This has complicated the process of restructuring the military. Israel claims that the 1974 treaty was no longer valid because one of the signatories to the treaty – i.e., the former Al-Assad regime – was no longer able to implement it. It also claims that it was acting in self-defence against a potential hostile force that might take advantage of the post-Assad security vacuum. However, the situation is different now the US and other major powers have recognised the new regime and begun forging strategic relations with Damascus. The risk of chaos that might affect Syria's neighbours is over. The Syrian political analyst Said Muqbil told Al-Ahram Weekly, 'the former regime drained the national budget for 50 years for 'the confrontation against Israel'. Seventy per cent of the budget went to the army and security apparatus, impoverishing the country. In the name of 'resistance and steadfastness', it monopolised power and spread repression. The result was more economic losses, more military defeats, and more erosion of Syrian territory by Israel. Meanwhile, the fronts remained silent and the border with Israel remained tightly guarded while Iranian penetration nearly destroyed the country. 'The approach to Israel will certainly be totally different now, of that we can be certain,' Muqbil continued. 'Peace is better for Syria – a peace founded on just and firm foundations. Syrians do not want more war. They are exhausted by war, which has deprived them of 50 years of development. In any case, the military balance game is not feasible, not now and not in the long term, because the Syrian regime had used the Syrian military machine to repress and kill its own people.' Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa has stated repeatedly that Syria has no intention to become a threat to its neighbours. In his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron last month, he condemned Israel's 'arbitrary' behaviour and called on it to stop intervening in Syrian affairs and to return to the 1974 disengagement borders. He also suggested that indirect negotiations were in progress with Israel to restore calm and prevent the situation from spiralling out of control. He made no mention of any plan to normalise relations with Isreal. On the other hand, in a statement following a telephone exchange with his American counterpart Marco Rubio, Syrian Foreign Minister Asad Al-Shibani said, 'Syria is looking forward to working with the US to return to the 1974 disengagement line.' The US Envoy to Syria Thomas Barrack said peace between Syria and Israel was a 'necessity' and that 'the dialogue between them has begun.' Syrian analysts believe the intensive US-brokered talks underway aim to reach security arrangements that will include Israel's withdrawal from the Syrian territory it has occupied since 8 December in exchange for a Syrian declaration that the two countries are no longer in a state of war. Some sources suggest that this would take the form of a commitment rather than an official declaration. Official Syrian news outlets have described statements regarding a peace treaty between Syria and Israel as 'premature.' Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said it is in Israel's interest to normalise relations with Syria and Lebanon, but he insisted that the Occupied Syrian Golan will be part of Israel under any future peace agreement. Observers believe that President Al-Sharaa would not sign a peace agreement with Isreal unless Isreal withdrew from the Syrian Golan. He will not offer a peace free of charge. That portion of territory that has been severed from Syrian geography remains an obstacle to a durable and lasting peace. 'The talks taking place at the moment between Syria and Israel through regional mediators are being closely monitored and encouraged by the US through diverse channels,' the military analyst Ayad Raji told Al-Ahram Weekly. 'They aim to reach an agreement on the lines of a necessary security truce satisfactory to both sides. This is not about reaching a permanent peace agreement, which is very politically sensitive. Many Syrians still oppose such a peace and going down that path could cause unrest. In any case, a permanent treaty must be ratified by parliament and signed into law by a permanent authority. All that takes consultations and time.' Syria and Isreal have been in a state of war in theory since the Palestinian Nakba in 1948. In 1967, Israel occupied about two-thirds of the Syrian Golan along with the entirety of historic Palestine. It annexed the occupied Syrian territory in 1981. In 1974, a year after the October War, Israel and Syria concluded a disengagement agreement that resulted in an 80 km-long buffer zone overseen by the UN. In addition to the aforementioned political sensitivities regarding a possible peace treaty with Israel, some thorny practical issues must be addressed. Even if the regional and international atmosphere is conducive, the two sides must agree on the status of the Occupied Golan, permanent borders, and security guarantees. What is beyond doubt is that Syria is doing everything in its power to reset its international relations on a sound foundation and, simultaneously, restore domestic stability and forge forward with reconstruction and development. It has no interest in engaging in new wars. This is not to suggest that the question of peace with Israel is not open to discussion. Indeed, everyone is searching for ways to beat the challenges to overcoming differences in order to reach a just formula for a lasting peace satisfactory to all parties. * A version of this article appears in print in the 10 July, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
Egypt Independent
05-07-2025
- Politics
- Egypt Independent
Possible agreement reached between Damascus and Tel Aviv over Golan Heights: Report
At the heart of the decades-long Syrian-Israeli conflict, the Golan Heights looms large. It remains one of the most sensitive and complex issues in a Middle East currently undergoing major political transformations. Syria has now found itself at a crossroads, faced between continuing the way or listening to the temptations of de-escalation. A historic deal The Israeli channel i24NEWS revealed on Friday that it has presented two possible scenarios for a 'historic' peace agreement between Syria and Israel, according to a Syrian source close to Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa. The Israeli channel reported the source as saying that 'the agreement will not be free,' indicating that Damascus, 'Will demand at least a third of the occupied Golan Heights as an essential part of any peace understanding with Israel.' The Syrian source, who remained anonymous, said that the first scenario involves dividing the Golan Heights into three parts. Israel would retain one-third of the strategically important areas, return one-third to Syrian sovereignty, and lease the remaining third from Syria to Israel for 25 years. The second scenario would see Israel retain two-thirds of the Golan Heights and return the remaining third to Syria – with the possibility of similar leasing arrangements. In what was seen as a sign of a shift in the official Syrian position, the source explained that Sharaa had demonstrated unprecedented openness to communicating with Israel, and opened direct channels of communication related to security and military coordination in southern Syria. The source emphasized that the recovery of any parts of the Golan Heights, including those seized by Israel after the collapse of the former regime's authority, is essential to gaining Syrian public support for any potential agreement. According to the source, recovering parts of the Golan Heights is not just a negotiation demand, but a political and social condition for ensuring the legitimacy of any peace agreement within Syria. He noted that local public opinion would not accept such a move without tangible gains regarding territorial sovereignty. Despite these leaks reported by the Israeli channel, no official comment has yet been issued by either the Syrian or Israeli sides. The return to disengagement agreement The Syrian Foreign Ministry announced that Damascus is ready to cooperate with Washington to return to the 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel, according to Agence France-Presse. A Syrian Foreign Ministry statement also reported that Minister Asaad al-Sheibani, during a call with his US counterpart Marco Rubio, expressed Syria's interest to cooperate with the US to return to the 1974 disengagement agreement, noting that the two sides discussed the repeated Israeli attacks on southern Syria. Syrian sources reported that intensive talks were underway to reach a peace agreement. They indicated that there was pressure on the US mediator to agree to a less drastic option, such as announcing security arrangements along the Syrian-Israeli border. This would include an Israeli withdrawal from all Syrian territory it entered after December 8, when Bashar al-Assad's regime was overthrown, in exchange for a Syrian declaration that the two countries are no longer at war, according to Syrian media reports. Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
Dubai Eye
04-06-2025
- General
- Dubai Eye
Israel strikes Syria after projectiles fired, holds Sharaa responsible
Israel has carried out its first airstrikes in Syria in nearly a month, saying it hit weapons belonging to the government in retaliation for the firing of two projectiles towards Israel and holding interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa responsible. Damascus said Israeli strikes caused "heavy human and material losses", reiterating that Syria does not pose a threat to any regional party and stressing the need to end the presence of armed groups and establish state control in the south. Israel had not struck Syria since early May - a month marked by U.S. President Donald Trump's meeting with Sharaa, the lifting of U.S. sanctions, and direct Syrian-Israeli contacts to calm tensions, as reported by Reuters last week. Describing its new rulers as jihadists, Israel has bombed Syria frequently this year. Israel has also moved troops into areas of the southwest, where it has said it won't allow the new government's security forces to deploy. The projectiles Israel reported fired from Syria were the first since longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad was toppled. The Israeli military said the two projectiles fell in open areas. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he held the Syrian president "directly responsible for any threat and fire toward the State of Israel". A Syrian foreign ministry statement said the accuracy of the reports of shelling towards Israel had not yet been verified. "We believe that there are many parties that may seek to destabilize the region to achieve their own interests," the Syrian foreign ministry added, as reported by the state news agency. A Syrian official told Reuters such parties included "remnants of Assad-era militias linked to Iran, which have long been active in the Quneitra area" and have "a vested interest in provoking Israeli retaliation as a means of escalating tensions and undermining current stabilization efforts". Several Arab and Palestinian media outlets circulated a claim of responsibility from a little-known group named "Martyr Muhammad Deif Brigades," an apparent reference to Hamas' military leader who was killed in an Israeli strike in 2024. Reuters could not independently verify the statement. The Syrian state news agency and security sources reported Israeli strikes targeting sites in the Damascus countryside and Quneitra and Daraa provinces. Local residents contacted by Reuters said Israeli shelling targeted agricultural areas in the Wadi Yarmouk region. They described increased tensions in recent weeks, including reported Israeli incursions into villages, where residents have reportedly been barred from sowing their crops. An Israeli strike also hit a former Syrian army base near the city of Izraa, a Syrian source said. Israel has said its goals in Syria include protecting the Druze, a religious minority with followers in both countries. Israel, which has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since the 1967 Middle East war, bombed Syria frequently during the last decade of Assad's rule, targeting the sway of his Iranian allies. The newly-appointed U.S. envoy to Syria said last week he believed peace between Syria and Israel was achievable. Around the same time that Israel reported the projectiles from Syria, the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile from Yemen. Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis said they targeted Israel's Jaffa with a ballistic missile. The group says it has been launching attacks against Israel in support of Palestinians during the Israeli war in Gaza.
TimesLIVE
04-06-2025
- General
- TimesLIVE
Israel strikes Syria after projectiles fired, holds al-Sharaa responsible
Israel has carried out its first air strikes in Syria in nearly a month, saying it hit weapons belonging to the government in retaliation for the firing of two projectiles towards Israel and holding interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa responsible. Damascus said Israeli strikes caused 'heavy human and material losses', reiterating that Syria does not pose a threat to any regional party and stressing the need to end the presence of armed groups and establish state control in the south. Israel had not struck Syria since early May — a month marked by US President Donald Trump's meeting with Sharaa, the lifting of US sanctions and direct Syrian-Israeli contacts to calm tensions, as reported by Reuters last week. Describing its new rulers as jihadists, Israel has bombed Syria frequently this year. Israel has also moved troops into areas of the southwest, where it has said it won't allow the new government's security forces to deploy. The projectiles Israel reported fired from Syria were the first since longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad was toppled. The Israeli military said the two projectiles fell in open areas. Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said he held the Syrian president 'directly responsible for any threat and fire towards the state of Israel'.
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's Syrian Outreach Turns an Enemy Into a Friend
Six months ago, U.S.-Syrian enmity seemed locked in for good. Congress was set to renew the Caesar Civilian Protection Act, a set of economic sanctions designed to weaken the government of Bashar al-Assad by preventing postwar reconstruction. And it was only the latest in a set of economic sanctions imposed in 1979, when the U.S. State Department declared Syria a state sponsor of terrorism. Even the revolution that overthrew Assad in December 2024 did not seem to change the trajectory. As rebels led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, then nicknamed Abu Mohammad al-Golani, advanced on Damascus, the Biden administration insisted that Golani and his men were also terrorists. Congress went ahead with the Caesar Act renewal, and hawkish factions in Washington prepared to put impossible conditions on sanctions relief. This week, however, the Trump administration seems to have let bygones be bygones. On Friday, the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued a three-page waiver lifting almost all economic sanctions on Syria unconditionally. On Wednesday, an American flag flew over Damascus for the first time in a decade as the Syrian government handed back the old U.S. ambassador's residence to Thomas Barrack, who serves as both U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria. Barrack said that President Donald Trump would soon be taking Syria off of the terrorism sponsors list, and claimed that the long-running Syrian-Israeli conflict is a "solvable problem," Reuters reported. "America's intent and the president's vision is that we have to give this young government a chance by not interfering, not demanding, by not giving conditions, by not imposing our culture on your culture," Barrack told the crowd at the residence. Later on his trip, Barrack followed up on the symbolism by signing off on a huge concrete investment: a $7 billion deal for a consortium of American, Turkish, and Qatari companies to build up Syrian electrical infrastructure. "Syria is OPEN FOR BUSINESS," Barrack declared on X. "Commerce not chaos!" It was the same tone Trump himself struck in Saudi Arabia earlier this month, where he denounced "so-called nation builders" who tried to impose their visions by force, bragged that "some of the closest friends of the United States of America are nations we fought wars against in generations past," and shook hands with Sharaa himself. Of course, a waiver isn't a permanent end to sanctions. The sanctions imposed by Congress have to be lifted by Congress. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that it should do exactly that. The administration could have taken a different approach. Sharaa had fought for Al Qaeda in the past, and Syria still has active territorial disputes with Israel, which captured the Golan Heights in a 1967 war and seized additional land after Assad fell. Some figures in the administration wanted to slow-roll sanctions relief as a way to keep the new Syrian government on its toes. But Rubio argued to Congress that keeping post-revolutionary Syria economically isolated could cause dangerous instability. By lifting almost all sanctions at once, the Trump administration demonstrated another foreign policy principle: You can just do things. Despite the bureaucratic tangle of sanctions, which some officials hinted would be a complicated process to undo, Trump simply waived them all with a short, simple declaration. And unlike the former Biden administration, which often complained that its hands were tied by hawkish Senate Democrats on foreign policy, Trump doesn't seem to be paying any political price for his outreach to Syria. A bigger test will be whether Trump can pull off the same maneuver with Iran, whose nuclear program he is currently negotiating to restrict. Sharaa won Syria a fresh start by overthrowing Assad. Iran, on the other hand, has a whole collection of ongoing, high-stakes disagreements with the U.S. And the U.S.-Iranian rivalry—which includes the 1979 embassy takeover and Iranian intervention in Iraq—has always been more emotionally charged than any U.S.-Syrian rivalry. Still, many of the same factors that led to "commerce not chaos" with Syria are aligned in favor of a deal with Iran. The Arab states now investing in Syria also want to do business with Iran without fear of U.S. sanctions, and have been reportedly lobbying Trump to deescalate that conflict. Trump himself seems pretty confident that a deal is around the corner—confident enough that he warned Israel not to attack Iran in the meantime. "I think we're going to see something very sensible," he told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. "That could change at any moment. It could change with a phone call. But right now, I think they want to make a deal, and if we make a deal, it would save a lot of lives." The post Trump's Syrian Outreach Turns an Enemy Into a Friend appeared first on
