Israel’s free hand in Syria’s new reality

Syria today is an open ground for Israeli incursions, where Israel moves at will without any real response from the Syrian army. The most recent example was the raid on a barracks in the Al Kiswah area near Damascus last Wednesday. It was not the first, nor will it be the last — evidence that Syria has stepped away from confrontation.
Israel wasted no time after the fall of Bashar al Assad to advance into southern Syria. It treated the 1974 disengagement agreement as void, seizing the strategic Mount Hermon summit and its observatory. It launched hundreds of air strikes, destroying much of the remaining military infrastructure, including weapons depots, research centres and production facilities. This raises urgent questions about Syrian sovereignty amidst growing talk of normalisation with Israel.
Since the transitional phase began, Damascus has avoided escalation — perhaps for political reasons, but also due to weakness. Years of war have left the Syrian army structurally exhausted. After a decade of internal conflict, Israel has ensured little remains. Reports published by Al Monitor in February 2025 suggest Syria may even be moving towards joining the Abraham Accords through discreet regional mediation.
Yet what prevents Syria from defending its dignity, even if it is on the path to normalisation? The more pressing question is whether Syria is truly heading there.
The fragile state of the country points in that direction. The transitional president has expressed conditional openness to joining the accords, though this clashes with strong popular rejection, particularly from nationalist and Islamist groups who see any rapprochement with Israel as a betrayal of martyrs’ blood. Still, such voices have grown faint in today’s Arab world.
After Assad’s fall, Syrian–Israeli relations shifted sharply. In May 2025, US President Donald Trump announced at the “US-Saudi Investment Forum” the lifting of sanctions on Syria, urging its new leadership to normalise ties with Israel. This was followed by secret talks in Azerbaijan, mediated by the UAE. Washington appears to be counting on Syria in its new Middle East map. Secretary of State Marco Rubio even described Syria’s openness to Israel as a “strategic priority”. Damascus tried to signal goodwill by handing over the archives and belongings of the late Israeli spy Eli Cohen, a gesture intended to open a new page.
Israel, however, seems in no hurry. With Syria already weakened, it enjoys a free hand across the country. Instead of rushing to normalise, it demands strict security guarantees, including the disarmament of armed groups in the south, and — more controversially — recognition of its sovereignty over the Golan Heights, as reported by Haaretz in March.
This reality raises a painful question: is it time to “weep for Bashar al Assad”? The same question was asked in Iraq after Saddam Hussein, in Libya after Muammar Gaddafi and in Tunisia after Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. These are the paradoxes of the Arab world, as the poet wrote: “On Amr I prayed that ruin be his fate, But harsher friends made me lament too late”.
There are those who argue that Assad, despite his authoritarian rule, stood as a barrier to partition and Israeli infiltration. Current events lend weight to that claim. It is also said of him, as of his father, that he departed without compromise or handshakes.
The latest Israeli raid near Damascus signals a new phase that goes beyond traditional deterrence. It reshapes the relationship between an Arab state and an occupying power that have faced off for more than half a century. Israel knows well that today’s Syria is not that of the past and seeks to set new facts on the ground before peace maps are drawn.
The Syrian people, long taught the ideals of Arab nationalism and resistance, now face a stark test: to accept a peace imposed from above with an enemy of seventy years, or to insist, however faintly, on their own conditions from below.
In my view, Syria’s normalisation is only a matter of time. What is certain is that the new Syria is not the old one and the region stands at the threshold of a phase that redraws alliances and gives Israel freer control than ever before.
Translated by Badr al Dhafari
The original version of this article was published in Arabic in the print edition of the Oman Arabic on September 01, 2025.

Zahir al Mahrouqi The writer covers regional politics