Israel and the Syrian Threat

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While Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has traded his combat fatigues for a suit and tie and insists he wants peace with all of Syria’s neighbors, has clearly taken in the Americans, from Ambassador Tom Barrack to President Donald Trump, the Israelis have not been fooled. They have seen his army’s attacks on the minorities — the Alawites in Latakia, the Druze in their Sweida stronghold, and now the Kurds in northeastern Syria — as part of his attempt to terrify them into submitting to the Sunni Arabs who now rule, by agreeing to submit to the dissolution of their own militias, and the integration of their fighters into the Syrian National Army. And just now, the Syrian Army has pushed the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) out of their role guarding the tens of thousands of Islamic State (ISIS) fighters and their families kept imprisoned in camps in Syria. The Syrian army has now entrusted the operation of those prison camps to the UN Human Rights Commission. Some ISIS fighters and their families have managed to be set free. Those freed are now making their way back to their countries of origin, including many in Europe. They are just as fanatical now as they were when they were first captured and imprisoned.

Given all this, Israel is determined to hold onto the territory it seized just after Assad’s fall. This includes a new buffer zone created by the IDF just north of the Golan Heights, where nine military outposts have been built, and taking over all of Mt. Hermon, giving Israel control of its commanding heights that overlook the road to Damascus far below. More on Israel’s deep distrust of the new regime in Damascus, and its moves to protect itself from future Syrian aggression, can be found here: “Why Israel must not trust the new Islamist order in Syria,” by Amine Ayoub, Israel National News, January 24, 2026:

The fall of the House of Assad in late 2024 was heralded by many as a victory for the Syrian people, but for the State of Israel, the transition to an Islamist-led order in Damascus has created a strategic nightmare that is currently culminating in a “jihadi time bomb” on the northern border. The fragile security apparatus that once contained and kept at bay tens of thousands of Islamic State (ISIS) fighters and their families has shattered following the rapid withdrawal of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) under military and political pressure from the new central government.

In a move that defies strategic logic, the United Nations has stepped in to manage the sprawling Al-Hol and Roj detention camps, despite lacking the mandate, capacity, or intelligence networks to secure a population of radicalized “true believers”. By transferring these camps to the UNHCR, the international community has essentially created an intelligence black hole where the UN’s humanitarian focus on feeding and housing is blind to the brewing storms of terror being planned within the tents.

The threat is no longer theoretical, as the “ghost caliphate” that ISIS maintained in the Syrian desert is now re-emerging with frightening speed. Intelligence reports indicate that the group has maintained clandestine support networks and is now exploiting the current security vacuum to replenish its ranks through mass prison breaks, such as the recent escape of over 120 fighters from the Shaddadi facility. These escapees are joining an estimated 3,000 active fighters who have successfully stockpiled heavy weaponry seized from the remnants of the old Syrian army.

Perhaps most concerning for Israel is the demographic reality within Al-Hawl, where children who were eight years old when the original caliphate was declared in 2014 have now reached “prime fighting age” after a decade of uninterrupted indoctrination. This is not a refugee camp in the traditional sense; it is a terrorist academy where the next generation of jihadists is being incubated under the protection of UN neutrality.

While the international community engages in a desperate normalization effort with Syria’s new interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, Israel remains clear-eyed about the “Sheikh-President’s” true identity. Despite his attempts to present a moderate technocratic face to the West, al-Sharaa is a former Al-Qaeda and ISIS commander who remains deeply tied to the radical Sunni ideology that fuels regional instability….

Whatever comforting fable Washington chooses to believe about Ahmed al-Sharaa, the Israelis know otherwise. His outward appeal as a “moderate technocrat” does not fool them. The actions of his army, in taking part in the massacres of all three of Syria’s minorities — the Alawites, the Druze, and now the assault on the Kurds — confirm their belief that the Syrian army is intent on becoming a Sunni Arab supremacist force, joined at the hip to Erdogan’s Turkish Army that, like al-Sharaa’s army, is determined to weaken the Jewish state. And that is why Israel will reject any request from Washington to become a “partner for peace” with al-Sharaa by withdrawing from the IDF’s new buffer zone just beyond the Golan Heights that includes Mt. Hermon.