Israeli strikes on Syria target chemical weapons, rocket and missile arsenals

Israel has destroyed weapons caches in Syria and seized areas along the countries’ shared border, taking advantage of a power vacuum in a move that threatens one of Israel’s most peaceful frontiers.

Smoke rising over an area of Syria near the Israeli-held Golan Heights on Monday. Picture: Getty Images.

Israel said it had destroyed chemical and other weapons caches in Syria and seized areas along the countries’ shared border, taking advantage of a power vacuum in Syria as it seeks to keep weapons out of the hands of Sunni Islamist rebels.

The moves garnered condemnations from some Arab countries, saying they undermined Syria’s territorial integrity. Israel said it had seized a demilitarised buffer zone, which was established 50 years ago under a ceasefire deal, and had ordered forces to temporarily take over abandoned Syrian army positions beyond it.

Israel has been more hawkish about protecting its borders since last year’s Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the move was “to ensure that no hostile force embeds itself right next door to the border of Israel.” Israeli military engineers also began constructing new defences on the border with Syria, as well as bolstering troop numbers there. Israel’s Army Radio said the military conducted more than 100 strikes in Syria on Sunday alone.

“What guides us is the security of the state of Israel and its citizens, ” said Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.

“Therefore we attacked strategic weapons, the residual chemical weapons capabilities, long-range missiles and rockets, so they won’t fall into the hands of radicals.”

The move to seize the buffer zone and territory beyond it threatens what has been one of Israel’s most peaceful borders. Mr Netanyahu said Sunday that the agreement with Syria was void after the fall of the regime and the abandonment of posts by Syrian soldiers.

Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq and Egypt condemned Israel’s actions, with Egypt calling them a violation of international law that undermines the integrity of Syrian territory.

While Israel’s security concerns are understandable, it isn’t clear if the move is only temporary, said Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group. “Israel has legitimate security concerns, ” she said. The risk, she said, is that Israel ends up holding on to the territory. “Security reasons have become land grabs,” she said, referring to settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Israel’s incursions into Syria come as its leadership is feeling emboldened by its success in degrading Iran and its allies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Mr Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel’s response to the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 last year set in motion a chain of events that led to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fall. The potential loss of Syria as an Iranian asset – most important as a highway for weapons and money into Lebanon – is largely viewed in Israel as a win in its larger battle against Iran’s so-called axis of resistance.

Still, for Israel, there are many unknowns. It isn’t clear who will lead Syria or if the country will be embroiled for years in internecine war. While Israel had deep intelligence on Mr Assad and the previous regime, the rebel group that led the recent assault, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, is a Turkish-backed Islamist Sunni nationalist group that Israeli officials say they don’t know well.

“Israel’s strategy is to break the Iranian land bridge to Lebanon and prevent a Sunni Jihadist crescent from Turkey to Egypt,” said Avner Golov, a former senior director at Israel’s National Security Council who is now a vice president at MIND Israel, an advisory group.

Israel is also concerned about attacks by Turkish-backed Sunni militias on the Kurdish minority and the Syrian Druze, an Arabic-speaking minority that lives close to the border with Israel and has strong familial links to Israel’s own Druze population. On Monday, Mr Saar condemned attacks by Sunni rebel groups against the Kurdish minority in northern Syria and called on the US to defend them. The US allied with the Syrian Kurds in the fight against Islamic State.

Mr Saar said Israel was spurred to action when armed men breached the buffer zone over the weekend and attacked a United Nations peacekeeping force near the border, violating the 1974 agreement.

A UN diplomat who was briefed on the matter said that on Saturday a group of armed individuals climbed the walls of a U.N. position and entered the base, which they ransacked and looted. There was an exchange of fire, with no casualties.

Israeli officials and analysts say the air strikes are largely aimed at hedging against worst-case scenarios, if either a government openly antagonistic to Israel comes to power or the country is drawn into a long-running civil war where rebel groups could gain access to weaponry.

“The goal is clear, namely to remove weapons that could at some point be turned against Israel,” said Michael Horowitz, the Israel-based head of intelligence for consulting firm Le Beck.

HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani has worked to moderate the group’s Islamist image by saying he would be tolerant in overseeing Syria’s myriad religious communities. But Israeli officials have viewed the group – which grew out of the Nusra Front, which the US considers an affiliate of al Qaeda – with concern. Syria has long contested Israel’s annexation of part of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in a 1967 war. Jawlani itself is a nom de guerre referencing his family’s roots in the Golan Heights.

HTS has supported Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and expressed support for the Palestinians. The umbrella opposition group it leads eulogised Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh after he was killed in Tehran in an attack largely believed to be carried out by Israel. But with attention focused on consolidating control and establishing governance in Syria, analysts say HTS is unlikely to turn its attention to or threaten Israel in the near term.

“They’re pragmatic,” said Aaron Zelin, an expert on Islamist groups at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, of HTS.

Some Israeli officials say they are concerned about chemical weapons falling into the wrong hands. Syria’s military had used sarin nerve agent in several attacks within its own territory, and there have been documented instances of chlorine gas use, according to international watchdogs. Syria is suspected of still holding stocks of sarin, according to a Central Intelligence Agency contractor, a former Israeli official and analysts.

Syria turned over 1,300 tons of chemicals for destruction in 2014 but a decade later, international watchdogs are still unable to fully verify that Syria destroyed its stores of chemical-warfare agents and munitions, the U.N.’s disarmament chief told the Security Council this month.

Israel formed an intelligence picture of Syria’s chemical-weapons program as early as 2010, said Jeremy Issacharoff, a former Israeli Foreign Ministry official overseeing efforts to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons. Those assessments found that Syria had developed both chemical agents and delivery systems, and at the time Israel estimated that Syria held about 1,300 tons of chemicals. Among the chemicals Syria developed were nerve agents sarin and VX, and mustard gas, he said.

“It was a clear and present danger,” Mr Issacharoff said.

The umbrella group for opposition forces including HTS on Saturday said it wouldn’t use chemical-weapons stores it might gain control over and would work with international partners to monitor the weapons.

“They want to have it as a deterrent and that’s why they’re talking about monitoring versus having them destroyed,” said Mr Zelin.

Dow Jones