Israel reportedly acted decisively in recent days, particularly overnight Monday, to systematically destroy Syria’s conventional and unconventional military capabilities, as the Iran-backed regime in Damascus disintegrated and Sunni rebel factions took over.
Israel Defense Forces International Spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told journalists on Tuesday, "We're acting to prevent lethal strategic weapons from falling into hostile hands. We have been doing this for years now in different ways and in different situations, and we are doing it right now."
He continued, "Our chief of general staff [Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi] said the primary focus is observing Iran's movements and interests, and our secondary focus is on local factions who are taking control of the area—assessing their actions, behavior and deterrence level—and ensuring they do not mistakenly direct their actions toward us."
He added, "I will just say we're doing our job to make sure that strategic weapons are not in the wrong hands. This is something that I think should be important for a lot of forces in the region, not just for Israel, making sure that there are not strategic problems in this region."
Various media reports describe an exceptionally extensive campaign of airstrikes against some 300 Syrian targets across the country. These allegedly include: Syrian Air Force bases and squadrons; advanced missile and UAV depots; research centers, such as the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (CERS), linked to chemical weapons sites; air-defense installations and large stockpiles of strategic weaponry.
The strikes have reportedly extended as far as an airport in Qamishli in northeastern Syria, according to Reuters, and appear to have targeted Syrian Navy vessels at Latakia Port. Observers and media sources described heavy explosions in Damascus and its outskirts.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Hanan Geffen, former commander of Unit 8200 in the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, told JNS on Tuesday that "the force that seized power in Syria surprised everyone, including, in my opinion, the rebels.”
Geffen added that “the disintegration of the Syrian army, which I've been following for almost 50 years, surprised everyone in an amazing way," and created an unprecedented strategic vacuum.
“I do not remember a time in history when we faced a similar case in the region," Geffen said, adding that while no one expected such a total and swift collapse, Israeli intelligence had a precise map of Syrian capabilities.
"There has been a very accurate picture of what was happening in Syria," he said, adding that the fate of Syria's chemical weapons was an international concern. In previous years, a common assumption was that the Assad regime would not use unconventional weaponry against Israel, Geffen noted. As a result, until now, Israel and other states had largely left chemical facilities in Syria alone.
Now that Assad’s regime has fallen, however, only uncertainty exists, he explained, saying,"This time, [the Israeli Air Force] went in a much more aggressive manner, also against the stockpiles,” said Geffen, adding, "It appears as if the IAF used really penetrating warheads, and everything they had in the arsenal, to destroy the Syrian stockpiles, including production facilities in the chemical domain."
Other targets, he said, based on reports, included air defense, regular weapons stockpiles and naval resources. According to Geffen, these targets have been known to Israeli intelligence for decades.
"I must say that whoever made this decision should be saluted," he stressed, adding that there has been minimal international pushback beyond Iranian complaints.
According to Dina Lisnyansky, an expert on the Middle East and radical Islamic movements who teaches at Tel Aviv and Reichman Universities, as well as at Shalem College, “The rebels are a kind of black box in a way; we really do not know what to expect from them," and this is what led Israel to reportedly take the above actions.
Ahmed Hussein al-Shar'a, known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the leader of the most powerful rebel group, Hayat Tahri Al-Sham, led a branch of Al-Qaeda in northwest Syria in the past, although the group does not now affiliate itself with this ideology, she noted.
Nevertheless, the ideological Salafist roots of some of the rebels are similar to those of Al-Qaeda, Lisnyansky cautioned, and the "manner in which they led the rebellion and their rhetoric on social media was very clearly Salafist. They very clearly see what they are doing in Syria as an Islamic directive, a religious directive, of deposing a tyrant who is abusing the weak. The fact that this tyrant [Bashar Al-Assad] is not a Sunni, but rather an Alawite, and is seen as a Shi'ite by the rebels, makes it a doubly more compelling religious directive."
As such, Lisnyansky said, the rebels remained unpredictable, despite some positive signs. al-Julani stated that the new Syria would be willing to work with all of its neighbors, including Israel, naming it specifically, she noted.
Nevertheless, she added, “We do not know fully what the intentions are." While certain rebel statements hinted at an orderly transition and even regional calm, Lisnyansky stressed, “Israel did not take a chance.”
So far, there is no sign of repression of Syria's minority groups, or mass violence against those who were part of the Syrian regime.
The influence of Turkey and other external actors heightened the uncertainty, Lisnyansky continued, stating, “If Turkey wanted to create some shared border with Israel [via rebel groups under its control], this could harm Israel, and this is also something that needed to be taken into account.”
As a result of these uncertainties, Lisnyansy explained, Israel took a decision to prevent strategic and unconventional weapons from falling into unknown hands.
Professor Eyal Zisser, vice rector of Tel Aviv University and holder of the Yona and Dina Ettinger Chair in Contemporary History of the Middle East, told JNS that the reason for Israel's move is concern about the unknown, specifically the scenario that Syria's new rulers "will turn out to be Islamists dangerous to Israel, and hence the desire to deny them military capabilities."
The chaos in Syria could also see weapons fall into the possession of armed gangs who could turn their guns on Israel, he cautioned.
"However, my concern is that we exaggerated a little bit, and with a very aggressive move, we needlessly pushed ourselves into the turmoil," Zisser argued. "Now, everyone is looking at us. Without this, we would not have been on the Syrian agenda and no one would be interested in us, and no one would have been particularly hostile to us."