Israeli Military Operations in Syria

Israeli and Syrian forces have clashed repeatedly since Israel's establishment, with the Golan Heights serving as a principal arena. Before the Six-Day War, Syrian artillery regularly shelled Israeli farms and communities from the heights. Israel launched a preemptive strike against Egypt on June 5, 1967, and later attacked Syrian aircraft and fortified positions, bringing the Golan under Israeli control. During the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, Syrian forces penetrated the Golan before the IDF counterattacked and advanced to within approximately twenty miles of Damascus.[1][2]

The Israel-Syria Disengagement Agreement was signed on May 31, 1974. It required both countries to observe a cease-fire and refrain from military action against each other. Israeli forces were placed west of Line A, Syrian forces east of Line B, and the area between those lines became a separation zone occupied by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, or UNDOF. Armaments and troop concentrations were limited on both sides, and Israel agreed to evacuate the enclave captured during the Yom Kippur War.[3][4]

The arrangement stabilized the frontier without constituting a peace treaty. UNDOF monitored an approximately 150-square-mile buffer zone for the next five decades.[5] The political status of the Golan remained contested: UN Security Council Resolution 497 treated the Israeli-controlled area as occupied Syrian territory, while the United States recognized the Golan as part of Israel in 2019.[6] Assad's fall in December 2024 disrupted the state-to-state framework on which the agreement had operated.

On June 9, 1967, Israeli forces commanded by Major General David Elazar opened the ground offensive against Syrian positions on the Golan Heights. The attack followed years of Syrian shelling and several days of wartime hostilities. Syrian aircraft attacked areas of the Galilee and attempted to bomb the Haifa oil refinery, while Syrian troops shelled Rosh Pina and other northern communities. Israel reported destroying more than fifty Syrian aircraft during the fighting.[2][7]

The decision to open the northern offensive was contested within Israel's leadership. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol consulted IDF Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin and senior generals on June 8. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan initially opposed attacking Syria because of the risks of Soviet intervention and military overextension. According to the Center for Israel Education's account, Dayan changed course early on June 9 after Syria announced its intention to accept a cease-fire and then ordered Elazar to attack.[7]

After a three-hour aerial bombardment, five Israeli ground attacks struck Syrian positions. Israel suffered heavy casualties before securing the heights, and Syria accepted the cease-fire on June 10. Control of the plateau ended nineteen years of recurrent shelling of northern Israeli communities and gave Israel commanding terrain overlooking the approaches from Syria.[1][7]

From 2012 onward, Israel conducted a campaign inside Syria that was overwhelmingly aerial. Its early focus was preventing weapons transfers to Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist organization in Lebanon. From 2018, Israel increasingly struck Iranian personnel, facilities, missile infrastructure, and allied militia positions established in Syria during the civil war.[5][6]

The campaign occasionally included ground action. In September 2024, Israeli forces conducted a joint air-ground raid against an underground missile-production facility. By then, more than a decade of operations had given Israel extensive familiarity with Syrian military infrastructure, Iranian deployments, and Hezbollah weapons routes.[5]

Bashar al-Assad's regime collapsed on December 8, 2024, ending more than five decades of Assad family rule and creating a security vacuum near Israel's northern frontier. Syrian soldiers abandoned positions in and around the UNDOF zone, leaving military posts and weapons unattended.[8]

On December 8, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the IDF to take control of abandoned positions in the buffer zone. He declared that the 1974 arrangement had collapsed with the Syrian army's withdrawal and said Israel would not permit a hostile force to establish itself beside the border. Netanyahu characterized the deployment as a "temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found."[8][9]

Israel said its objectives included protecting Israeli civilians and Golan communities, preventing strategic weapons from reaching terrorist groups, keeping southern Syria demilitarized, and protecting Syrian Druze communities. In January 2025, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israeli forces would remain on Mount Hermon and in the security zone "indefinitely." Netanyahu had visited the Syrian side of Mount Hermon on December 17, 2024, and said Israel would remain until an arrangement guaranteeing its security was established.[10][11]

Alongside the ground deployment, Israel launched Operation Bashan Arrow, its heaviest air campaign against Syria since the Yom Kippur War. Within approximately 48 hours of the IDF's December 10 announcement, the military reported conducting more than 350 strikes against strategic targets. A separate Syrian Observatory for Human Rights tally, cited by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, counted at least 473 strikes during the week after Assad's fall.[10][12]

The targets included military airports, air-defense batteries, weapons-production facilities, missile depots, Scud and cruise missiles, coast-to-sea missiles, aircraft, helicopters, radars, tanks, and hangars. Strikes also hit a security complex and research centers in Damascus's Kafr Sousa district associated with missile and chemical-weapons development. The IDF estimated that approximately 80 percent of the former regime's military capabilities had been destroyed, a figure originating with the Israeli military.[10][11]

Israeli missile boats attacked Syrian naval facilities at al-Bayda and Latakia, where fifteen vessels and dozens of sea-to-sea missiles were destroyed. Israel said the overall campaign was intended to prevent advanced weapons and abandoned military assets from reaching jihadists, Hezbollah, Iran, or other hostile forces. Netanyahu stated that Israel did not intend to interfere in Syria's internal affairs but would act against threats to Israeli security.[10]

The initial deployment developed into a geographically dispersed ground presence. By August 2025, reports described nine Israeli posts in southern Syria, mostly within the UN-patrolled buffer zone, and more than 300 ground operations since Assad's fall. Israeli troops were reported to be operating as far as approximately fifteen kilometers inside Syrian territory.[5][13]

Israeli activity extended beyond the separation zone. The IDF conducted raids near Damascus, including around al-Kiswah and Maaraba, and in Deraa near the Jordanian border. Forces also disarmed border villages, seized heavy weapons as far as ten miles inside Syria, and contacted village leaders to request the collection of residents' weapons. A continuous Israeli presence was reported north of the buffer zone along the Lebanese border.[5][12]

Israel seized positions on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon with views toward Damascus and Hezbollah's strongholds in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley. Permanent bases were subsequently reported on the mountain's slopes. The IDF was also ordered to prevent a Syrian military buildup within sixty-five kilometers of the border. Some preparations had begun before Assad's fall: in October 2024, Israeli units constructed roads, fortified fence-line positions, and deployed armored assets inside the UNDOF zone.[5][11]

Operations continued during 2025. Israeli strikes and a troop raid near Kiswah in August killed Syrian soldiers, while a November raid near Beit Jinn targeted armed Islamists; Syrian officials reported thirteen Syrian deaths. During a separate August operation on Mount Hermon, an old Syrian grenade exploded after being recovered, lightly injuring four Israeli soldiers.[6][13]

Israel's 2025 operations increasingly reached the Syrian capital. In May, amid sectarian violence involving Druze and Sunni Arab communities, Israel struck the Syrian Ministry of Defense headquarters and locations near facilities associated with the presidency. Israel presented the strikes as support for the Druze, a minority with close familial and communal ties to Israeli Druze society.[6][14]

Violence escalated around Suweida in July. The Congressional Research Service reported that fighting between Bedouin and Druze communities killed nearly 1,400 combatants and civilians and displaced more than 185,000 people. Israel again struck the Defense Ministry headquarters and locations near the presidency. Israeli raids in southern Syria also led to direct clashes with armed groups and local residents.[6]

Israel separately struck the T4 and Palmyra air bases after Turkey indicated an intention to establish a military foothold there. The strikes were intended to preserve Israeli freedom of operation in Syrian airspace. The resulting Israeli-Turkish friction was followed by talks in Azerbaijan and an agreement to establish a deconfliction mechanism.[14]

Syria's transitional authorities protested the Israeli airstrikes and ground deployment as violations of Syrian sovereignty and the 1974 agreement. Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, said Syria would not serve as a launchpad for attacks on Israel but urged Israel to halt its strikes, withdraw from territory entered after Assad's fall, honor the disengagement agreement, and permit UN monitors to return.[8][6]

The transitional government said it was willing to return Syrian state forces to areas adjacent to the UNDOF zone if Israel withdrew from positions within and beyond it. In November 2025, al-Sharaa said that a final agreement would require withdrawal to the lines held before December 8, 2024. A Syrian political source had stated in July that talks could proceed only after Israeli compliance with the 1974 agreement and that the status of the Golan was not negotiable.[15][6]

France and Russia characterized the Israeli deployment in the separation zone as a violation of the 1974 agreement. The United States adopted a more qualified position. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the deployment responded to the Syrian military's withdrawal and had to be temporary, while emphasizing that Washington ultimately wanted the disengagement agreement fully upheld.[10][16]

Washington Institute analysts warned that a lasting Israeli presence beyond the UNDOF zone could encourage radicalization, create new terrorist threats, undermine Syrian stability, and increase friction with Turkey. The institute also reported the formation of new Iran-backed groups claiming that they would resist the Israeli presence.[5]

Diplomatic engagement emerged alongside the continuing military activity. During April and May 2025, Israel reduced its strikes and adopted less confrontational rhetoric toward al-Sharaa. Initial contacts between Israeli and Syrian representatives were reportedly mediated by the United Arab Emirates. Al-Sharaa confirmed at a Paris press conference on May 7 that indirect contacts were underway.[14][15]

From May through July, the contacts reportedly expanded into direct talks covering border security, non-hostility, possible normalization, and potential Syrian accession to the Abraham Accords. One arrangement under discussion involved gradual Israeli withdrawal from parts of the buffer zone entered at the end of 2024 in exchange for Syrian commitments against hostile activity.[15]

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said on June 28 that "The Golan will remain part of the State of Israel," while also declaring that Israel was interested in peace if its security interests were preserved. The talks therefore represented a diplomatic opening without resolving the core disputes over the Golan, Israeli troop positions, or the future of the 1974 framework.[15][14]

The characterization of Israel's post-December 2024 presence remains contested. Israeli officials described the deployment as temporary, limited, and defensive, citing the collapse of Syrian authority and the danger of an October 7-style terrorist attack. Syrian authorities and international critics described the same ground advances, outposts, and territorial control as an invasion, occupation, or violation of Syrian sovereignty. The label "Israeli invasion of Syria" is consequently not used consistently across the sources.[10][8]

The operative status of the 1974 agreement is also disputed. Israel argued that the framework became inoperative when Assad's government collapsed and Syrian forces abandoned their positions. Syria and international critics maintained that the agreement remained binding despite the change of government. The agreement itself placed the separation zone between Lines A and B under UNDOF and excluded Israeli and Syrian military forces from it.[3][5]

Claims about the scale of destruction require attribution. The estimate that about 80 percent of the former regime's capabilities were destroyed originated with the IDF and was not an independently established measurement. Strike totals also differ by period and methodology: the IDF reported more than 350 strikes during the opening campaign, while a Syrian Observatory tally counted at least 473 during the full week after Assad's fall.[10][12]

Washington Institute analysts described Israel's concerns about terrorist groups, unsecured weapons, and post-Assad instability as understandable but judged the broader cross-border deployment potentially destabilizing. They questioned whether maintaining positions outside the UNDOF zone, conducting raids near Damascus and Deraa, and establishing a prolonged territorial presence would ultimately improve Israeli security. These assessments remain analytical judgments rather than settled conclusions.[5]