By Guardian-Peter Beaumont-Sun 15 Dec 2024 10.13 GMT

Strikes follow statement by Israel’s defence minister that troops would remain on Mount Hermon for winter. Israel struck dozens of sites in Syria overnight with airstrikes, despite the Syrian rebel leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, saying his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group was not interested in conflict with Israel.

The latest airstrikes follow a statement by Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, that Israeli troops, who seized the Golan Heights buffer zone with Syria last week, would remain for the winter on Mount Hermon in positions they occupied last week.

Katz’s office said in a statement that “due to what is happening in Syria, there is enormous security importance to our holding on to the peak”.

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, a nom de guerre used by Ahmed al-Sharaa, told Syrian state media: “There are no excuses for any foreign intervention in Syria now after the Iranians have left. We are not in the process of engaging in a conflict with Israel.”

Jolani said Israel was using false pretexts to justify its attacks on Syria, but that he was not interested in engaging in new conflicts as the country focused on rebuilding after the end of Bashar al-Assad’s reign.

He added that “diplomatic solutions” were the only way to ensure stability rather than “ill-considered military adventures”.

“Israeli arguments have become weak and no longer justify their recent violations. The Israelis have clearly crossed the lines of engagement in Syria, which poses a threat of unwarranted escalation in the region,” Jolani said.

“Syria’s war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations. The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction.”

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Israel fired 61 missiles at Syrian military sites in less than five hours on Saturday evening.

Israeli air raids hit bases, heavy weapons, sites associated with the former Assad regime’s missile and chemical weapons programme, and destroyed Syria’s small naval force in port of Latakia.

The continuing strikes have prompted mounting concern among diplomats and international officials concerned over what they fear may be an open-ended new occupation of Syrian territory.

The UN has called on Israel to withdraw from the buffer zone, which sits between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, said he was “deeply concerned by the recent and extensive violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

France, Germany and Spain have also called on Israel to withdraw from the demilitarised zone.

The UN has said Israel is in violation of a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that established the buffer zone. Israel has said the 1974 disengagement agreement “collapsed” with the fall of the Assad regime government.

Responding to Jolani, the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, said: “We aren’t intervening in what is happening in Syria. We have no intention of administering Syria.”

“There was an enemy country here. Its army collapsed. There is a threat that terror elements will come here, and we advanced so … extreme terror elements won’t settle close to the border with us.

“We are unequivocally intervening only in what determines Israeli citizens’ security. The deployment along the entire border, from Mt Hermon to the meeting of the Israeli-Syrian-Jordanian border, is proper.”

According to reports, among the sites hit over the weekend were military headquarters, Syrian army positions, radars, and arms caches and assets of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, which was responsible for developing advanced weapons.

Israel also estimates it has destroyed much of the Syrian air force’s infrastructure and aircraft.

The scale of the Israeli bombing campaign has surprised many western capitals, who had believed that any Israeli strikes would be limited to chemical weapons and missiles sites rather than an effort aimed at the wholesale destruction of the Syria’s military, which has had 70% of its capabilities destroyed in hundreds of attacks.

The latest Israeli air raids came as the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, wound up talks with Jordan, Turkey and Iraq with the aim of trying to shape the future of a post-Assad Syria by forging consensus among regional partners and allies whose interests often diverge.

“We know that what happens inside of Syria can have powerful consequences well beyond its borders, from mass displacement to terrorism,” he told reporters in Aqaba, Jordan. “And we know that we can’t underestimate the challenges of this moment.”

Blinken also confirmed contacts between the Biden administration and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

Blinken would not discuss details of the direct contacts with HTS but said it was important for the US to convey messages to the group about its conduct and how it intended to govern in a transition period.

The world failed to save Syria. Now its people must be free to chart their own path

Self-serving meddling by Israel, Turkey and other foreign powers puts the revolution at risk. They should back off now

By Guardian - Simon Tisdall-Sun 15 Dec 2024 07.00 GMT

United in duplicity, if nothing else, Russia, Iran, Turkey and the US – key external players in Syria’s long-running drama – all agreed. The country’s “sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity” must be respected and maintained, each separately declared last week after Bashar al-Assad’s sudden, welcome downfall.

Even Israel, recklessly bombing Syria to blazes in the Jewish state’s largest ever military operation, denied it was interfering in the country’s internal affairs. Such cynicism is breathtaking. Like ravening wolves, supposed friends and neighbours tug at the still twitching corpse of the deposed regime. Unchecked, they could tear Syria apart, again.

Importunate foreign powers also have this in common: they seemingly cannot abide the thought of Syria’s people independently charting their own future. Last week’s revolution – the overdue denouement of a popular revolt begun in 2011 – was ultimately achieved despite them and largely without outside help.

The Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is not an ideal choice to lead the country. But after 13 years of failing Syria, the international community was not asked for its opinion. Self-serving outside interventions and, in the case of the west, craven cop-outs undercut or helped defeat pro-democracy forces. They lengthened the war.

Russia sought regional influence and military bases. Iran’s militias built supply routes to proxies in Gaza and Lebanon. Turkey went gunning for Kurds. The US and the UK, burned by Iraq, focused on fighting Islamic State terror. Barack Obama jettisoned his 2009 “new beginning” with the Muslim world and, later, his red lines on chemical weapons. “Foreign powers, whose meddling did so much to propel Syria’s long civil war, must avoid repeating the mistake. Few capitals look enthusiastically at Islamists dominant in Damascus, but for now no option exists but to work with the new authorities,” the International Crisis Group (ICG) says.

Untroubled by an enfeebled Assad, Israel mostly confined itself to hitting Iran-linked forces during the civil war. Now, suddenly, it has discerned an existential threat. That at least is how it justifies illegal border land-grabs inside Syria, condemned as destabilising by the UN, and hundreds of attacks on “strategic targets”.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says he’s worried a hostile HTS may allow Iran back in. “If [HTS] attacks us, we will respond forcefully… What happened to the previous regime will also happen to this regime,” he warned. No surprise that he’s not celebrating. As all the world knows, peace is not Netanyahu’s thing.

The idea, attractive to western governments, that Russia and Iran have been permanently repulsed is wishful thinking

Yet by opportunistically attacking an undefended Syria and seizing chunks of territory, he invites the outcome he most wants to avoid: the enmity of Assad’s successors and long-term Israel-Syria hostility. But wait! Maybe he doesn’t want to avoid it. As all the world knows, Netanyahu loves a war.

The idea, attractive to western governments, that Russia and Iran have been permanently repulsed is wishful thinking. The Kremlin is certainly distracted by Ukraine. But precisely because that war is assuming global dimensions, Vladimir Putin will not surrender his strategic eastern Mediterranean air and naval bases if he can avoid it.

Moscow is pursuing a deal with the transitional government, despite having bombed and gassed opposition fighters and civilians for almost 10 years. To steal a march, Putin may offer the recognition and material support that western countries are withholding. Iran’s Shi’ite leadership was stunned to an almost comical degree by Assad’s sudden toppling by Sunni rebels. But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who never learns anything, is not abandoning his “axis of resistance”. If it cannot do so openly, Tehran and its militias will act clandestinely inside and via Syria, including rearming Hezbollah.

Khamenei tacitly blamed Turkey as well as the US and Israel for Assad’s fall, and it’s true Ankara backed HTS’s offensive. But President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s motives are deeply selfish. As the Islamists advanced south, Turkish proxies attacked US-backed Kurds along the northern border where Erdoğan, like Netanyahu, is building a buffer zone. He believes Kurds, not HTS, are the terrorists. Fighting continues amid renewed mass civilian displacement across north-east Syria.

It’s plain Turkey wants a bigger chunk of post-Assad Syrian territory – even if that means sabotaging the Kurds’ policing of detention camps housing defeated IS caliphate terrorists. Last week, the US, while insisting that it, too, respects Syrian sovereignty, attacked 75 IS hideouts in the eastern desert.

Donald Trump has threatened in the past to withdraw US forces from Syria. But Marco Rubio, his choice as secretary of state, argues they should stay to prevent a re-emerging terrorist threat.

Humanitarian aid should be offered to Syria unconditionally. Easing sanctions would help

That is how European governments see it, too. Better blood in the sand in Syria than on the streets of Paris, London or New York. Trump says Syria is “not our fight”. He may yet decide otherwise.

Out-of-control armed groups, score-settling, huge social dislocation, returning refugees, vast unmapped minefields and a wrecked economy pose daunting challenges across Syria. But so far the HTS leadership is making positive noises about a peaceful political transition, new security arrangements, safeguarding chemical weapons and respect for minorities.

“Those governments with ties to HTS should urge it to bring as wide a range of voices as possible into government and to tread an inclusive line,” the ICG urged, referring to the Gulf states and Turkey, meeting in Jordan this weekend. Upholding human rights is more important than any quest for supremacy or vengeance.

Humanitarian aid should be offered to Syria unconditionally. Easing sanctions would help. Yet how refreshing it would be if, just for once, a newly liberated people was trusted to chart its own path towards democracy, justice, reconciliation and reconstruction, free from outside interference.

Let Syrians decide what they need, what kind of future they want. Until then, back off, stop meddling – and celebrate their victory.

Simon Tisdall

 Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s Foreign Affairs Commentator

Editor notes.

THE SPOILS BELONG TO THE CONQUERER (NOT ISRAEL)