Enab Baladi – Hussam al-Mahmoud
With his announcement of accepting a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon on November 27, and when he appeared in a “Victory Speech” for the Israeli street showcasing the “capabilities of his army” to front seven fronts simultaneously (Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, the West Bank, and Iran), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a brief threat to Syrian regime President Bashar al-Assad.
Netanyahu stated during his review of the Israeli army’s activities on the seven fronts, “As for Syria, we are thwarting Iran and Hezbollah’s attempts and the Syrian army’s efforts to smuggle weapons into Lebanon; al-Assad must understand that he is playing with fire.”
Hours before the fighting ceased, Israeli airstrikes targeted several Syrian ground crossings with Lebanon, resulting in the deaths of six people and the injury of 28 others.
Local radio Sham FM reported that six fatalities and 10 injuries were the initial toll from the targeting of the Dabousiya crossing (the al-Aboudiya from the Lebanese side) in Homs countryside on November 27.
The al-Arida border crossing with Lebanon in Tartus was also bombed for the first time on the same day, resulting in 18 injuries, three of whom were in critical condition, according to Syrian state television.
Hours before these strikes, Israel launched aerial attacks from Lebanon targeting two sites in Homs countryside, causing material losses as stated in a brief statement from the Syrian regime’s Ministry of Defense, which did not specify the nature of the targeted sites.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (based in London) reported that the strikes targeted, in addition to the Dabousiya, al-Arida and Jousiyeh crossings, illegal crossings in the Qusayya hills and Nabi Sheet hills, near the city of Serghaya and Zabadani in the Damascus countryside, as well as unofficial crossings in Wadi Khaled in the countryside of Homs, and three bridges on the al-Kabir River, which separates Syria and Lebanon.
Connection to Lebanon
Israel links targeting the border crossings with Lebanon to the issue of transferring military supplies to the Lebanese Hezbollah from Syria, and despite the cessation of fighting, Israeli strikes have repeatedly targeted the border.
The Syrian regime’s efforts to reconnect what has been severed with Lebanon at the geographical and crossing levels, with the reopening of the Jdaidet Yabous crossing following the completion of its maintenance on November 28, after being disabled by an Israeli strike on November 22, were not the last of the strikes.
On November 30, the Israeli army bombed a crossing on the Syrian-Lebanese border, and the Israeli army spokesperson, Avichai Adraee, stated that the Israeli army, guided by military intelligence, attacked military infrastructure in Syria near the border crossings between Syria and Lebanon, which Hezbollah has actively used to transfer combat equipment to Lebanon.
Adraee added that this strike came after monitoring the transfer of military supplies to Hezbollah from Syria to Lebanon, even after the ceasefire agreement, which constitutes a threat to Israel and a violation of the understandings of the ceasefire agreement.
The renewed discussion about striking the crossings and their use by Hezbollah has been accompanied by multiple violations of the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon and Israeli threats of the possibility of heading toward a wide-scale war with Lebanon if the agreement is widely breached.
These data and developments bring the Syrian regime in general, and al-Assad in particular, back into the circle of threats that Netanyahu discussed.
Strategic expert and non-resident researcher at the Stimson Center in Washington, Amer al-Sabaileh, told Enab Baladi that the Syrian geography is the natural extension that awaits the next front after Lebanon, and what the Israeli did in Lebanon is to keep the front semi-open and conduct intelligence operations that it considers “its right” under the agreement, which means “its right” to carry out targeting operations of any supply operations coming from and returning to Syria from Lebanon, which suggests that the Syrian geography from the very first day is an essential part of the Lebanon front and cannot be viewed in isolation from what is happening there.
The researcher believed that closing the Lebanon front with a formal agreement resembles the situation in Gaza, where the level of fighting has been reduced and moved to other fronts, which means the continuation of developments on the ground in Syria in the upcoming period.
Open front
In al-Sabaileh’s opinion, Syria cannot be excluded from these strikes, considering that Tehran’s natural extension in Lebanon is through Syria and Iraq, which makes Syria the most prominent station.
He also pointed out that maintaining Syria in its old form is difficult for several reasons, including the overall explosion of the Syrian reality, whether in the north or south, or the borders connecting Syria and Iraq. This geography aims at two things: first, Israel cannot end any operations without guaranteeing cutting off the roads between Tehran and Beirut, which means a change in the Syrian geography is inevitable; second, the battle in Syria will continue as it has become the field where targeting is facilitated, and this explains the operations and strikes on stores, convoys of supplies, and even operations targeting individuals and experts, all of which indicate that Syria is the main theater of targeting.
The researcher believes that al-Assad has turned Syria into an important station for all these movements, thus legitimizing the targeting of objectives on Syrian ground, converting Syria into an open front that cannot be closed away from the larger picture in the region, which is all seven fronts, as Israel believes it is redrawing its security geography, leading to a strong focus on strikes in Syria, which explains Netanyahu’s statement that “al-Assad is playing with fire.”
The ceasefire agreement in Lebanon, the text of which was reported by Yedioth Ahronoth, did not explicitly mention Syria in its articles, but it granted Israel the space to operate in Lebanon under the name of “the right to self-defense.”
The guarantee letter provided by the United States to Israel included a clause recognizing Israel’s “right” to operate in the southern region and beyond at any time against any violations of obligations, retaining its “right to act” against evolving threats directed at it if Lebanon is unable or unwilling to thwart these threats, and if Israel decides to take such steps, it will inform the United States where feasible.
During the war on Lebanon and its developments, which resulted in the downfall of the former Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, the Syrian regime followed a similar path as it did in dealing with events in Gaza, where the matter did not exceed biased media coverage for the party and “the axis of resistance,” some supportive statements that bless the “efforts of the resistance,” and the reception of displaced Lebanese people in Syria, some of whom were hastening to return to their homes as soon as the ceasefire was announced.
Referring to the developments in the Syrian geography surrounding the current scene, the issue is not limited to repeated Israeli bombings; as As-Suwayda continues to express its political stance rejecting al-Assad’s rule, while Syrian opposition fighters are carrying out two operations to regain a wide geography from the regime’s grip, which they lost years ago under the bombardment of barrels, shells, and Russian aircraft. This places al-Assad on more than one front currently, all of which he responds to with inertia and a lack of action, except for official statements from the Ministry of Defense.