‘Southern Syria won’t become southern Lebanon’: Israel escalates strikes as new Syrian president calls for IDF withdrawal

Almost three months after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, relations between Israel and the new government continue to be highly tense.

After Prime Minister Benjmain Netanyahu’s call for a complete demilitarization of southern Syria caused widespread outrage in the country, its new president Ahmad al-Shara (formerly al-Jolani) on Tuesday rejected the “provocative statements.”

However, within hours, the IDF carried out some of its most intense strikes in the country, hitting “military targets in southern Syria, including headquarters and sites containing weapons.”

“The presence of military assets and forces in the southern part of Syria poses a threat to the citizens of the State of Israel,” the IDF stated, and Defense Minister Israel Katz explained the strikes were “part of the new policy we have defined of pacifying southern Syria - the message is clear: We will not allow southern Syria to become southern Lebanon.”

Al-Shara on Tuesday chaired a “National Unity” conference intended to clarify the political and economic future of the war-torn country.

While he decried Israel’s “violation” of his country sovereignty and called on the international community to help “stop the aggression,” Kan News reported that al-Shara also send conciliatory signals to Israel in the past days.

Netanyahu’s statement on Sunday included a promise to protect the Druze community in southern Syria’s Suweida province. After Syrian media reported that the comments caused several anti-Israel demonstrations across southern Syria, including the burning of Israeli flags, a Druze delegation met with the president in Damascus.

According to a source who took part in the meeting and spoke to Kan News, al-Shara used the meeting to calm possible fears in the Druze community, as well as signal to Israel that his new regime won’t pose a threat.

“There is no threat to security inside Syria. We want peace. We have no enemies. We want to build a country and provide services,” al-Shara reportedly said at the meeting. “We have no intention of starting a war with anyone.”

The source said that al-Shara argued that the threat once posed from Syrian territory by the axis of the Assad regime, Hezbollah and Iran, no longer exists.

He also stressed his government’s efforts to combat Hezbollah’s weapon smuggling through Syria’s border with Lebanon.

At the National Unity conference, al-Shara also contradicted Netanyahu’s statements which implied the Druze community was at danger of violent reprisals.

“Statements that claim certain communities are in danger, while those who say this present themselves as their protectors and saviors, are empty declarations that will not succeed in entrapping the Syrians,” al-Shara said.

Minorities like the Druze, the Alawites, Christians and Shia Muslims are categorized as infidels under the Islamist ideology espoused by many of al-Shara’s former terrorist allies, which he is now working to integrate into the country’s new security forces.

This is one of the main reasons for Israel’s concerns and its apparent new policy of enforcing southern Syria’s complete demilitarization.

“We will not allow southern Syria to become southern Lebanon - any attempt by the Syrian regime forces and the country's terrorist organizations to establish themselves in the security zone in southern Syria - will be met with fire,” emphasized Defense Minister Katz.

According to Syrian reports, the strikes late Tuesday targeted sites in the area of al-Kiswah, south of Damascus, killing four people.

Other strikes reportedly hit a site in the town of Izra, further south. The Hezbollah-affiliated network al-Mayadeen claimed an old Syrian army base was targeted.

After the strikes, protests against Israel broke out in Damascus and Homs. Footage purportedly taken at one of the protests showed a crowd calling on al-Shara to attack Israel: “Dear Jolani, bomb Tel Aviv!”