Syrian security forces announced on Nov. 3 that they had foiled a plot to attack the Homs oil refinery. According to Syrian authorities, two suspects were arrested, explosives were seized and the alleged perpetrators were linked to Hezbollah.
Hezbollah immediately denied the accusations, insisting it had no presence in Syria. Whether or not every detail of the Syrian allegations is ultimately substantiated, the incident illustrates a remarkable reversal.
Homs and the territory stretching westward toward Qusayr and the Lebanese border are precisely where Hezbollah once fought to preserve former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
For years, this region served as a critical artery for Iranian weapons, money and military equipment flowing into Lebanon. Today, Syrian security forces are working to disrupt networks associated with that same organization.
I write these lines from Kibbutz Dafna, near Israel’s northern border. Having commanded Operation Good Neighbor along the Syrian frontier and now serving as a reservist in the Golan Division, I have spent much of my military career watching Syria and Lebanon function as interconnected fronts: Damascus provided strategic depth, while Hezbollah served as Iran’s forward arm against Israel.
That relationship has fundamentally changed, and Israel must act accordingly.
The Homs incident is part of a broader pattern. In March, Syrian forces uncovered and sealed smuggling tunnels along the Lebanese border in the western Homs countryside. In July, Syria’s Interior Ministry announced that it had intercepted, near the Iraqi border, a shipment of long-range missiles, anti-tank guided missiles and drones reportedly bound for Hezbollah. Additional seizures have shown that Damascus is increasingly willing to confront networks that once operated under the protection of the Syrian state.
This does not mean Hezbollah’s supply routes have disappeared.
Smuggling continues across the porous Syrian-Lebanese border, and the organization is adapting. But for decades, Iran’s land corridor from Tehran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon enjoyed the active cooperation of the Assad regime. Today, that corridor has a hostile customs officer standing in the middle of it. For Hezbollah, already weakened by Israel, this is a significant setback.
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is not acting out of sympathy for Israel. He has compelling reasons of his own.
The first is historical. The forces that now control Damascus fought Hezbollah during Syria’s civil war, during which the organization helped sustain Assad against the very factions from which Syria’s new leadership emerged.
The second is regime survival. Attacks on energy infrastructure, illegal weapons networks and armed groups operating beyond state control directly threaten the new government’s ability to govern a country facing enormous economic and security challenges.
The third is international legitimacy. Al-Sharaa needs investment, diplomatic recognition and influential partners. In June, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that he had discussed Hezbollah with the Syrian leader, and on Nov. 4, Syria signed a defense cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia. Confronting Hezbollah serves all three objectives.
In a recent column, I warned that al-Sharaa is harnessing anti-Israel anger on the Syrian street and may struggle to contain it.
That warning stands. The same government that confronts Hezbollah along its western border regards Israel as a principal security threat. A nationwide survey conducted by the Doha-based Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and the Arab Center for Contemporary Syria Studies found that 61% of respondents identified Israel as the greatest threat to Syria, compared with 20% who named Iran.
Israeli military activity in southern Syria, even when driven by legitimate security considerations, has fueled demonstrations and deepened hostility toward Israel.
So, two things are true at once: Damascus remains an adversary in Syria’s south while pursuing an interest in the west that directly serves Israel.
Hezbollah and Iran have every reason to exploit this contradiction. Portraying Israel as the common enemy of Syrians and Lebanese diverts attention from Hezbollah’s own activities and makes it politically harder for Damascus to confront the organization. Every Israeli operation that Syrians perceive as unnecessary or humiliating strengthens that narrative.
So, what should be done?
First, use the mechanism already agreed upon.
In January, Israeli and Syrian representatives meeting in Paris under American mediation agreed to establish a joint mechanism for intelligence sharing, de-escalation, and communication. Its existence does not prove that an effective operational channel is functioning, but it provides a foundation Washington should seek to activate.
Countering Hezbollah’s weapons networks is a concrete issue on which limited coordination could benefit both sides without requiring political reconciliation.
Before acting, Israel should ask not only whether an operation is militarily justified, but whether its benefits outweigh the damage to broader objectives.
Second, keep cooperation discreet.
Commanding Operation Good Neighbor taught me that public Israeli support can become a liability for those receiving it. In Syria’s political environment, visible cooperation with Israel could expose al-Sharaa to accusations of betrayal and undermine the very operations Israel wants to succeed.
Information can pass through American channels, Syrian forces can act against threats to their own security and Israel can benefit without claiming credit. The best cooperation in the Middle East is the kind both sides deny.
Third, connect the Lebanese and Syrian arenas.
The American-brokered framework between Israel and Lebanon seeks to restore Lebanese state authority through the verified disarmament of Hezbollah and other armed groups, alongside a phased Israeli withdrawal. But clearing Hezbollah’s infrastructure from southern Lebanon will achieve little if the organization can replenish its arsenal through the Syrian border.
Damascus is already disrupting some of these networks for its own reasons, and Syrian-Lebanese discussions on border security are underway. The Homs arrests were announced a day after Syrian officials met a Lebanese delegation to discuss the issue.
Washington should build on this in three concrete ways: The verification mechanism the Lebanese framework still lacks should cover not only southern Lebanon but also the main smuggling corridors along the Syrian border, such as the Qusayr-Hermel area.
Intelligence from Syrian seizures should reach the Lebanese army and the framework’s monitors through American channels, so that a shipment stopped in Syria counts as progress in Lebanon.
And an American mechanism should link the Lebanese track to the Israel-Syria mechanism agreed in Paris, without Syrian forces entering Lebanon or Israel and Syria sitting at the same table.
With the U.N.’s ineffective Lebanon peacekeeping force UNIFIL’s mandate ending on Dec. 31 and its withdrawal planned for 2027, any follow-on verification arrangement must cover the Syrian border, not just the Litani area.
Fourth, act decisively but selectively in southern Syria.
Israel must retain its freedom of action, because preventing hostile military entrenchment along the Golan Heights remains a fundamental security requirement. But preserving the initiative does not make every possible operation strategically necessary.
Before acting, Israel should ask not only whether an operation is militarily justified, but whether its benefits outweigh the damage to broader objectives.
The aim is not to protect al-Sharaa politically, but to avoid handing Hezbollah a tool for mobilizing Syrian hostility against Israel.
Fifth, never confuse a shared interest with an alliance.
Al-Sharaa’s campaign against Hezbollah does not make his government a friend of Israel. His ideological background, the composition of Syria’s emerging military and the country’s developing regional alliances all demand continued scrutiny.
Israel’s red lines must remain firm: no renewed Iranian military presence, no jihadist entrenchment in southern Syria, no attacks against the Druze and no threatening Syrian military buildup near Israel’s border under the pretext of confronting Hezbollah. Cooperation must remain limited, conditional and subject to verification.
For decades, Syria was the backbone of Hezbollah’s strategic depth. Assad’s fall did not eliminate the organization’s weapons networks, but it stripped them of the state protection that made them so effective.
Now, Damascus has reasons of its own to weaken what Iran spent decades building, and Hezbollah stands to benefit if hostility between Israel and Syria prevents both from acting on that shared interest.
Israel must not allow that to happen.
The struggle against Hezbollah can no longer be managed solely through the Lebanese arena. Israel should turn this convergence of interests into a strategic advantage before the opportunity disappears.
