Syria's War

Israel has conducted more than 1,000 air strikes and more than 400 ground incursions in Syria since al-Assad overthrow.

Israel’s army has renewed its incursions into Syria, setting up a checkpoint in the southern province of Quneitra, according to local media, as it continues daily attacks, destabilises its neighbours and occupies and assaults Palestine.

State news agency SANA reported that two tanks and four military vehicles entered the town of Jabata al-Khashab in the Quneitra countryside on Wednesday, setting up the military post on the road leading to the village of Ain al-Bayda.

Damascus did not immediately comment but has repeatedly condemned Israel’s repeated violations of its sovereignty, highlighting Israel’s failure to adhere to the 1974 Disengagement Agreement that followed the 1973 war.

In that war, Syria was unable to retake the occupied Golan Heights. The 1974 agreement saw the establishment of a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone, which Israel has violated since the fall of Bashar al-Assad last December

Israel has previously said the 1974 agreement is void since al-Assad fled, breaching Syrian sovereignty with air strikes, ground infiltration operations, reconnaissance overflights, the establishment of checkpoints and the arrests and disappearances of Syrians. Syria has not reciprocated attacks.

Back in September, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa stated that Israel had conducted more than 1,000 air strikes and more than 400 ground incursions in Syria since al-Assad was overthrown, describing the actions as “very dangerous”.

Numerous villages in Quneitra, southern Syria, have experienced Israeli incursions, according to Syrian outlet Enab Baladi.

De-escalation discussions

Syria and Israel are currently in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israel’s air strikes on its territory and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.

In the background, the United States has been pushing diplomatic efforts to restore the 1974 deal. On Saturday, Trump’s special envoy Tom Barrack said the two countries are expected to hold a fifth set of de-escalation discussions.

Amid Israel’s continued belligerence and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promotion of his vision for a “Greater Israel“, al-Sharaa has been forging closer ties with the US.

On Monday, he is heading to Washington for talks with President Donald Trump, marking the first visit by a Syrian president to the White House in more than 80 years.

Barrack said on Saturday that Syria is expected to join the US-led anti–ISIL (ISIS) coalition, describing it as “a big step” and “remarkable”.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani said earlier this week that al-Sharaa was also expected to discuss Syria’s reconstruction with Trump.

Al-Sharaa’s trip, planned for November 10, will be first-ever visit by a Syrian president to the White House.

United States President Donald Trump will host Syria’s interim leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, for talks on November 10, according to Washington’s envoy to Damascus, in what would mark the first-ever visit by a Syrian president to the US capital.

Tom Barrack, the US envoy to Syria, told the Axios newspaper on Saturday that al-Sharaa is expected to sign an agreement to join an international US-led alliance against the ISIL (ISIS) group during his visit.

The Reuters news agency also cited a Syrian source familiar with the matter as saying that the trip was expected to take place within the next two weeks.

According to the US State Department’s historical list of foreign leader visits, no previous Syrian president has paid an official visit to Washington.

Al-Sharaa, who seized power from Bashar al-Assad last December, has been seeking to re-establish Syria’s ties with world powers that had shunned Damascus during al-Assad’s rule.

He met with Trump in Saudi Arabia in May, in what was the first encounter between the two nations’ leaders in 25 years.

The meeting, on the sidelines of Trump’s get-together with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council, was seen as a major turn of events for a Syria that is still adjusting to life after the more than 50-year rule of the Assad family.

Al-Sharaa also addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September.

Barrack, the US envoy to Syria, told reporters on the sidelines of the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain that Washington was aiming to recruit Damascus to join the coalition the US has led since 2014 to fight against ISIL, the armed group that controlled about a third of Syria and Iraq at its peak, between 2014 and 2017.

“We are trying to get everybody to be a partner in this alliance, which is huge for them,” Barrack said.

Al-Sharaa once led Syria’s offshoot of al-Qaeda, but a decade ago, his anti-Assad rebel group broke away from the network founded by Osama bin Laden, and later clashed with ISIL.

Al-Sharaa once had a $10m US reward on his head.

Al-Sharaa, also referred to as Abu Mohammed al-Julani, had joined fighters battling US forces in Iraq before entering the Syrian war. He was even imprisoned by US troops there for several years.

The US-led coalition and its local partners drove ISIL from its last stronghold in Syria in 2019.

Al-Sharaa’s planned visit to Washington comes as Trump is urging Middle East allies to seize the moment to build a durable peace in the volatile region after Israel and Hamas earlier this month began implementing a ceasefire and captives’ deal. That agreement aims to bring about a permanent end to Israel’s brutal two-year war in Gaza.

The fragile ceasefire and captive release deal continues to hold, but the situation remains precarious.

Israeli strikes in Gaza earlier this week killed 104 people, including dozens of women and children, the enclave’s health authorities said. The strikes, the deadliest since the ceasefire began on October 10, marked the most serious challenge to the tenuous truce to date.

Meanwhile, Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli air strikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.

Barrack told the Manama Dialogue earlier that Syria and Israel continued to hold de-escalation talks, which the US has been mediating.

He told reporters that Syria and Israel were close to reaching an agreement, but declined to say when exactly a deal could be reached.

Israel and Syria have been Middle East adversaries for decades.

Despite the overthrow of al-Assad last December, territorial disputes and deep-seated political mistrust between the two countries remain.

A landmark deal to integrate the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with state institutions has stalled as both sides accuse each other of violence.

Syria’s government has declared a ceasefire between its security forces and Kurdish fighters in the northern city of Aleppo, after at least one person was killed and four people were injured in overnight violence.

Murhaf Abu Qasra, Syria’s minister of defence, announced the ceasefire on Tuesday after meeting with Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), saying the two sides had “agreed on a comprehensive ceasefire across all fronts and military positions in northern and northeastern Syria”.

“The implementation of this agreement will begin immediately,” the government minister added.

The Syrian army and the United States-backed SDF clashed after SDF fighters reportedly targeted checkpoints in the city, according to the state-run news agency SANA.

SDF forces allegedly fired into residential areas in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Achrafieh neighbourhoods of Aleppo “with mortar shells and heavy machine guns”, SANA reported, adding there were civilian casualties.

Residents of the area told The Associated Press that two security guards in a public park were killed on Tuesday by shelling, and a woman and a child were wounded.

The SDF denied attacking the checkpoints and said its forces withdrew from the area months ago. It blamed the outbreak of violence on aggression by government forces.

It also issued a statement on Tuesday accusing government military factions of carrying out “repeated attacks” against civilians in the Aleppo neighbourhoods and imposing a siege on them.

The violence was the latest flare-up in tensions between the interim government and the SDF, which has sought to retain de facto autonomy in the northeast part of the country.

It was also another setback for the landmark deal struck in March by President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Abdi.

The agreement, brokered after the fall of ousted President Bashar al-Assad in December, was designed to integrate Kurdish-led forces into Syria’s state institutions.

It also would have seen key assets held by the SDF — including border crossings, an airport, and oil-and-gas fields — handed to Damascus by the end of the year. The SDF is estimated to control about a quarter of Syria’s land, mostly in the northeast part of the country.

The government in Damascus has hoped to consolidate its control over the country. But progress on the March plan has stalled.

Both Damascus and the SDF have accused each other of provocations that have increased tensions.

On Tuesday, the presidential office issued a statement that al-Sharaa had spoken to US envoy Tom Barrack to discuss how the plan might be implemented “in a manner that safeguards Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

They also discussed “ways to support the political process”, according to the statement.

On Monday, Syria published the results of its first parliamentary election since al-Assad was toppled, a landmark moment in the country’s fragile transition after nearly 14 years of civil war.

Most new members of the revamped People’s Assembly are Sunni Muslim and male. Electoral commission spokesperson Nawar Najmeh told a news conference on Monday that only four percent of the 119 members selected in the indirect vote were women and only two Christians were among the winners, sparking concerns about inclusivity and fairness.

Election marks landmark moment in country’s post-war transition, but vote is postponed in Druze and Kurdish areas.

Syria has published the results of its first parliamentary election since the government of former President Bashar al-Assad was toppled, revealing that most new members of the revamped People’s Assembly are Sunni Muslim and male.

Electoral commission spokesperson Nawar Najmeh told a press conference on Monday that only four percent of the 119 members selected in the indirect vote were women and only two Christians were among the winners, sparking concerns about inclusivity and fairness.

The election represents a landmark moment in the country’s fragile transition after nearly 14 years of war, but critics say it favours well-connected figures and is likely to keep power concentrated in the hands of Syria’s new rulers, rather than paving the way for genuine democratic change.

News agency AFP cited Najmeh as saying that the number of women in the parliament was “not proportionate to the status of women in Syrian society and their role in political, economic and social life”.

He called the representation of Christians “weak, considering the proportion of Christians in Syria”.

The authorities resorted to an indirect voting system rather than universal suffrage, alluding to a lack of reliable population data following the war, which killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians and displaced millions.

Sunni Muslims make up an estimated 75 percent of Syrians. The former al-Assad regime, which was overthrown in December after a nearly 14-year civil war, was largely headed by Syrians from the Alawite minority.

Sunday’s vote saw around 6,000 members of regional electoral colleges choose candidates from preapproved lists, part of a process to produce nearly two-thirds of the new 210-seat body. President Ahmed al-Sharaa will later select the remaining third.

Citing security and political reasons, authorities postponed the vote in areas outside government control, including Kurdish-held parts of Syria’s north and northeast, as well as the province of Suwayda, held by the Druze minority. Those suspensions left 21 seats empty.

Najmeh was cited by news agency AFP as saying the state was “serious” about having “supplementary ballots” to fill the assembly’s seats.

Reporting from Damascus, Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid said: “If you ask the Druze in the south or the Kurds in the north, they say [the elections] were not representative.

“If you ask people in major cities, like Aleppo, Damascus, Hama, and other parts of the country, they’re hopeful that this is the first taste of a real election.”

On March 10, Syria’s Kurds and Damascus agreed to integrate Kurdish-administered civil and military institutions in the country’s northeast into the state by the year’s end, but negotiations on implementing the deal have stalled.

Delays in implementing the March 10 agreement meant there were no timetables as yet for ballots in Raqqa and Hasakeh, according to Najmeh.

Najmeh said that the president’s choice would perhaps “compensate” for some underrepresented components of Syrian society, but he rejected the idea of a quota-based system.

Political and rights activist Nour al-Jandali, who was selected for a seat in central Syria’s city of Homs, was quoted by AFP as saying the new lawmakers “have a great responsibility”.

She noted challenges the new legislature faces, including “how we re-establish a state built on freedom, citizenship and justice”, adding that “women must have a real and active role” in drafting public policy.

According to UNHCR, more than seven million Syrians remain displaced inside the country.

The United Nations has said that one million Syrian refugees have returned to their country since the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad last December, while warning that funding for humanitarian operations is falling.

“In just nine months, one million Syrians have returned to their country following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad government on 8 December 2024,” the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said in a statement on Tuesday.

The agency added that 1.8 million people displaced within Syria during its nearly 14 years of civil war had also returned to their areas of origin.

Nearly half of Syria’s pre-war population of 13 million was displaced by the conflict that began after the Assad regime’s crackdown on peaceful antigovernment protests as part of the Arab Spring protests in 2011.

Challenges for returnees

While describing the mass returns as “a sign of the great hope and high expectations Syrians have following the political transition in the country,” UNHCR said many of those heading back are struggling to rebuild their lives.

“Destroyed homes and infrastructure, weak and damaged basic services, a lack of job opportunities, and volatile security are challenging people’s determination to return and recover,” the agency said.

According to UNHCR, more than seven million Syrians remain displaced inside the country and more than 4.5 million are still abroad. It urged greater investment in stabilisation efforts and increased support for vulnerable families.

Call for humanitarian support

“The international community, private sector, and Syrians in the diaspora must come together and intensify their efforts to support recovery and ensure that the voluntary return of those displaced by conflict is sustainable and dignified and they are not forced to flee again,” said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

A recent UNHCR survey found that 80 percent of Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq want to return home one day, with 18 percent saying they hope to do so within the next year.

“They have endured a lot of suffering in the past 14 years and the most vulnerable among them still need protection and assistance,” Grandi said. “Sustained support to hosting countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Türkiye is equally critical to ensure returns are voluntary, safe and dignified.”

UNHCR warned that funds for humanitarian operations are dwindling. Inside Syria, only 24 percent of the required funding is available, while for the wider regional Syria response, just 30 percent of the requested funds have been provided.

“This is not the time to cut back support for the Syrian people and their push for a better Syria for them and the region,” the agency said.

Syria’s al-Sharaa voices hope for deal, warns of regional risks due to Israeli attempts to fragment country.

Israel is close to striking a “de-escalation” agreement with Syria, after the latter’s President signalled that his country was “scared” of the former’s relentless attacks since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s rule last year.

United States Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack said on Tuesday that the agreement would see Israel stopping its attacks on its neighbour, while Syria will agree to not move any machinery or heavy equipment near the Israeli border.

Barrack said that both sides were negotiating “in good faith” on the agreement, which had been slated for completion this week, but had been slowed down by the Rosh Hashana holiday – the Jewish New Year – this week. The agreement would serve as first step towards an eventual security deal, he said.

Speaking shortly before Barrack, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose forces toppled longtime autocrat ruler al-Assad back in December, voiced hope for a security deal, pointing out that his country had not created problems with Israel.

“We are scared of Israel, not the other way around,” he told an event of the Middle East Institute in New York.

“There are multiple risks with Israel stalling on the negotiations and insisting on violating our airspace and incursions into our territory,” he said.

“Jordan is under pressure, and any talk of partitioning Syria will hurt Iraq, will hurt Turkiye. That will take us all back to square one,” he added.

Al-Sharaa will be the first Syria leader to address the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Wednesday in six decades.

Risks of fragmentation

Israel and Syria have been Middle East adversaries for decades, the enmity between the pair heightening during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and Israel’s occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights.

Since Assad’s ouster, Israel has hobbled Syria’s attempts to get back on a stable footing, trashing a 1974 ceasefire agreement between the two states, striking Syrian military assets and sending troops to within 20 km (12 miles) of Damascus.

Al-Sharaa said last week that Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions.

Israel has alternately claimed that its strikes on Syria are aimed at preventing terrorism or protecting the country’s Druze minority, notably in the southern area of Suwayda where sectarian violence erupted in June. But Israel has brazenly bombed central Damascus as well.

Critics charge that Israel is seeking to fragment the country in a bid to keep it weak and exert its own dominance over the region.

Speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, al-Sharaa renewed his call to the US to formally lift sanctions imposed on his country to enable it to rebuild and held talks this week with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Israel has been lobbying US lawmakers and policymakers at the State Department for months to keep sanctions in place.

In a historical twist of fate for the ages, al-Sharaa sat down for interview this week, whilst in New York for the UNGA, with former US General David Petraeus, who once arrested the then rebel righter and led American forces during the invasion of Iraq, later becoming the director of the CIA.

A third of the People’s Assembly of Syria seats will be appointed directly by President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Syria will elect a new People’s Assembly on October 5, the first parliament to be chosen since the fall of Bashar al-Assad late last year.

The vote for members of the parliament will take place “across all electoral districts”, the state-run SANA news agency reported on Sunday.

The announcement comes as the new government seeks to rebuild state institutions and gain legitimacy amid regional and international efforts to stabilise the war-battered country.

A third of the assembly’s 210 seats will be appointed directly by President Ahmed al-Sharaa. The rest will be chosen by local committees supervised by the electoral commission. The chamber will be tasked with approving legislation aimed at overhauling decades of state-controlled economic policies and ratifying treaties that could reshape Syria’s foreign policy.

The new parliament is also expected to “lay the groundwork for a broader democratic process” following al-Assad’s removal in December after nearly 14 years of civil war, SANA said. Critics, however, warn that the current system does not adequately represent Syria’s marginalised communities.

Authorities had initially said the vote would take place in September. The electoral commission previously indicated that polling in the provinces of Suwayda, Hasakah and Raqqa would be delayed because of security concerns.

Suwayda witnessed clashes in July between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin tribes, while Hasakah and Raqqa remain partly under the control of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

In March, al-Sharaa’s administration issued a constitutional declaration to guide the interim period until the election.

The document preserves a central role for Islamic law as well as guarantees women’s rights and freedom of expression. Opponents have expressed concern that the framework consolidates too much power in the hands of Syria’s leadership.

Al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda commander whose Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group played a key role in al-Assad’s fall, has also turned to regional diplomacy to bolster his government and Syria’s security.

He told local media that security talks with Israel are a “necessity”, stressing that any agreement must respect Syria’s territorial integrity and end Israeli violations of its airspace.

Istanbul, Turkiye – Just hours after Israel launched strikes last week against Qatar – a United States-designated “major non-NATO ally” and one of Washington’s closest Gulf partners – pro-Israel commentators quickly shifted their attention to Turkiye.

In Washington, Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, suggested that Turkiye could be Israel’s next target and warned that it should not rely on its NATO membership for protection.

On social media, Israeli academic and political figure Meir Masri posted, “Today Qatar, tomorrow Turkey.” Ankara responded sharply. In unusually harsh language, a senior adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote: “To the dog of Zionist Israel … soon the world will find peace with your erasure from the map.”

For months, pro-Israel media outlets have steadily escalated their rhetoric against Turkiye, portraying it as “Israel’s most dangerous enemy”.

Israeli commentators have also framed Turkiye’s presence in the eastern Mediterranean as a “threat” and its role in rebuilding post-war Syria as a “new rising danger”.

With Israel’s regional aggression escalating and its war on Gaza showing no sign of ending, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan retaliated in August by suspending economic and trade ties with Israel.

“In Ankara, this [anti-Turkish] rhetoric is taken seriously, with Israel seen as seeking regional hegemony,” Omer Ozkizilcik, non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Al Jazeera.

“Turkiye increasingly feels that Israeli aggression has no limits and enjoys American support,” added Ozkizilcik.

The strikes on Qatar also likely underscored Ankara’s doubts about US security guarantees as a NATO ally. Despite Doha’s special ally status with Washington, Israel faced no visible pushback from the US, leading to questions over whether the US would truly see any attack on Turkiye as an attack on itself, as the NATO charter dictates.

Unlike many Arab states, however, “Turkiye has long ago understood that it cannot rely on the US or NATO for its own national security interests,” said Ozkizilcik.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself now increasingly boasts of his country’s regional expansionist goals. In August, when asked whether he believed in the idea of a “Greater Israel”, he replied: “Absolutely.”

For Ankara, such rhetoric is not just symbolic – it signals an Israeli vision of dominance that stretches across the Middle East, potentially clashing head-on with Turkiye’s own regional outlook.

On Sunday, Fidan told Al Jazeera that Israel’s “Greater Israel” vision – which some religious Zionists believe extends into modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan – aims to “keep the countries in the region weak, ineffective, and especially to leave Israel’s neighbouring states divided”.

Over the last few weeks alone, Israel – in addition to continuing its genocidal onslaught in Gaza and nearly-daily raids in the occupied West Bank – also attacked Yemen and Syria, and is accused of hitting the Gaza aid flotilla in Tunisia.

Against this backdrop, Turkiye and Israel are already in a “geopolitical rivalry”, noted Ozkizilcik, adding that Israel’s actions clashed with what the analyst views as the “Turkish agenda to have strong [centralised] states” rather than decentralised states where multiple forces can hold power.

Regional hegemon

The sense that Israel is trying to become the region’s sole dominant power seemed to be confirmed in July when Tom Barrack, US ambassador to Turkiye and special envoy to Syria, made a startling admission: that Israel would prefer a fragmented and divided Syria.

“Strong nation-states are a threat – especially Arab states, [which] are viewed as a threat to Israel,” he said.

The subtext for Ankara was clear: Israel believes it needs to be the hegemon in the region to feel secure.

Israel’s actions bear this out. It has bombed Syria dozens of times since December 8 – when former President Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow – and grabbed Syrian territory in the immediate chaos.

It decapitated much of Hezbollah’s leadership in 2024 and still occupies parts of Lebanon despite a ceasefire, long seeking to weaken or destroy the group.

In June, Israel attacked Iran, sparking a 12-day war that struck Iranian military and nuclear facilities, killing senior commanders and nuclear scientists, and dragged in the US.

The attacks aimed not only to weaken Tehran’s defence and nuclear capabilities but also to push Washington towards regime change, targeting one of Israel’s strongest rivals in the region.

Israel may now view Turkiye as the next potential challenge to its regional hegemony, explaining its adamant stance that Ankara will not be allowed to establish new bases in Syria that “could threaten Israel” – as Netanyahu has previously said.

“The first manifestation of Turkish-Israeli friction will most likely appear in the Syrian front in the land and air,” warns Cem Gurdeniz, a retired Turkish admiral and architect of the Blue Homeland doctrine, a maritime strategy that calls for Turkiye to assert its sovereignty and safeguard its interests across the surrounding seas – the Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea.

“In parallel, Israel’s deepening military and intelligence footprint in Cyprus, tightly woven with Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration under American auspices, is perceived in Ankara as a deliberate attempt to fracture and contain the Blue Homeland,” Gurdeniz told Al Jazeera.

“To Ankara, this is not a defensive posture by Israel but an offensive encirclement strategy that could threaten both Turkish maritime freedom and the security of the Turkish Cypriot people,” he added, referring to Turkiye’s ties to the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is only Turkiye recognises, rather than the rest of Cyprus, which is ruled by Greek Cypriots.

The division of Cyprus is a major source of discontent between Turkiye, Greece and Cyprus.

Reports that Cyprus received Israeli air-defence systems last week are likely to raise alarm in Ankara.

In tandem in Syria, Israel has made no secret that what it considers to be a stable Syria “can only be a federal” one with “different autonomies”, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told European leaders at a meeting in Brussels in February.

Turkiye, on the other hand, backs the new Syrian administration, which insists on a centralised and unitary state.

For now, tensions between Israel and Turkiye can be described as “controlled”, says Gokhan Cinkara, director of Necmettin Erbakan University’s Global and Regional Studies Centre in Turkiye.

“At present, the riskiest scenario for Turkiye would be an uncontrolled outbreak of intergroup conflict in Syria. For this reason, Ankara is likely advising the new Syrian administration to act with a degree of rational pragmatism,” Cinkara told Al Jazeera.

“The immaturity of Syria’s security apparatus makes any potential intergroup clashes harder to contain, and risks turning it into protracted ethnic and sectarian conflicts. In the short term, therefore, adopting a unitary model seems difficult,” he added.

Red lines and risks

Netanyahu, for his part, is pushing for a “Balkanised” Syria, divided along ethnic and religious lines, demanding the demilitarisation of much of southern Syria, mostly populated by the country’s Druze population.

That is a move that, if implemented, could light the touchpaper and ignite demands from members of other groups in the country, including the Kurds and Alawite, for their own tailored versions of de facto autonomy.

“Turkiye, however, has clear red lines in Syria,” says Murat Yesiltas, director of foreign policy research at SETA, a think tank in Ankara with close ties to the government.

“The US and Israel’s attempt to reshape the regional order carries various dangers and risks, deepening fragmentation in the Middle East,” Yesiltas told Al Jazeera.

In March, Israel’s most influential security think tank, the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), published a piece that warned against the nascent peace process between Turkiye and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is seeking to close a chapter on a four-decade armed campaign against the Turkish state in a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people.

The INSS warned that this could “weaken the ability of the Kurds in Syria to continue to operate autonomously” and contribute to Ankara “expanding its influence in southern Syria, in a way that could increase the threat to Israeli freedom of action”.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz made clear that swaths of newly occupied territory in southern Syria will be held for an “unlimited amount of time”.

As Turkiye scoped out potential military bases in Syria’s Homs province and the main airport in Hama province in coordination with the newly established Damascus government, Israel bombed the sites.

“If Tel Aviv persists on this path, a conflict between Ankara and Tel Aviv will become inevitable. Turkiye cannot accept policies that perpetuate instability on its southern border,” said Yesiltas.

But full-blown rivalry is “not inevitable” as both sides recognise the costs of confrontation, particularly given economic interdependence, Andreas Krieg, associate professor of security studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera.

“Israel’s threat to Turkiye is not conventional military aggression but rather the targeting of Turkish interests via indirect means,” said Krieg, speaking about Ankara’s interests in Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean and the South Caucasus.

Given Washington’s full and seemingly unconditional support for Netanyahu’s bid to “reshape the region”, Krieg says Ankara’s prescription is to “strengthen strategic deterrence, especially through expanded air-defence, missile systems and intelligence capabilities” and to pursue regional coalitions with Qatar, Jordan and Iraq while maintaining open channels with Washington to “avoid full strategic isolation”.

“Ankara must recognise that future flashpoints are more likely to emerge in the grey zone – covert operations, air strikes, and proxy competition – than in formal declarations or diplomacy,” he added.

Israel has repeatedly entered Syria since the fall of al-Assad and has carried out air raids across the country.

Israeli troops have carried out a ground operation in Syria’s southeastern Deraa province, Syria’s state news agency reported, the latest incursion in the neighbouring country as it also continues air raids against Damascus in various locations.

Soldiers also carried out searches in the Saysoun and Jamlah towns on Sunday, which are adjacent to the 1974 ceasefire line that was meant to separate Israeli and Syrian troops.

On Saturday, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the country’s interim president, said talks with Israel have begun to re-establish a 1974 agreement which was concluded after the 1973 war between the countries.

Israel and Syria have held direct talks in recent months, and al-Sharaa has ruled out normalisation. The talks are aimed at halting Israel’s aggressive actions towards Syria and reaching some kind of security deal.

Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on military sites and assets across Syria since the fall of former leader Bashar al-Assad in December. It has also expanded its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights by seizing the demilitarised buffer zone, a move that violated the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria.

On Tuesday, Syria “strongly condemned” Israeli attacks on several sites in and around Homs city in the west of the country and around the coastal city of Latakia.

The Israeli air attacks represent “a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic”, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

While Israel had for years waged a secretive campaign of aerial bombardment against Syria’s military infrastructure, its attacks on its neighbour have ramped up since the war on Gaza and the fall of al-Assad.

In late August, six Syrian soldiers were killed in an Israeli drone attack on Damascus, which came a day after a ground incursion into Syrian territory by Israeli troops.

The attacks on Syria come amid Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promotion of a vision for a “Greater Israel“, a concept supported by ultranationalist Israelis that lays claim to the occupied West Bank and Gaza, as well as parts of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan.

After violence in southern Syria’s Suwayda on July 13 between Bedouin tribal fighters and Druze factions, government forces were sent in to quell the fighting. But the bloodshed worsened, and Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops and bombed the heart of the capital, Damascus, under the pretext of protecting the Druze.

The IAEA has urged Syria to cooperate fully over allegations it had been building a covert nuclear reactor at the site – allegations Syria denies.

The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog has said its inspectors discovered uranium particles at a site in Syria it suspects was once used as part of a clandestine nuclear programme run by the former government of Bashar al-Assad.

Last year, inspectors visited and took environmental samples at “three locations that were allegedly functionally related” to the remote desert site Deir el-Zour, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spokesman Fredrik Dahl said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Analysis revealed a significant number of anthropogenic natural uranium particles in samples taken at one of the three locations. Some of these uranium particles are consistent with the conversion of uranium ore concentrate to uranium oxide,” said Dahl. This would be typical of a nuclear power reactor.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi reported these findings to the agency’s board of directors on Monday in a report on developments in Syria.

The report also stated that “the current Syrian authorities indicated that they had no information that might explain the presence of such uranium particles.”

The IAEA urged Syria on Tuesday to cooperate fully over allegations that it had been building a covert nuclear reactor at Deir Az Zor.

Syria has repeatedly denied these allegations.

The Deir Az Zor site only became public knowledge after Israel – which is the Middle East’s only state with nuclear weapons, although it has not declared its own programme – launched air strikes in 2007, destroying the facility. Syria later levelled the site and never responded fully to the IAEA’s questions.

An IAEA team visited some sites of interest last year while al-Assad was still in power. After al-Assad’s fall last December in a rebel offensive on the capital Damascus, the new government led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa agreed to cooperate with the agency and again provided inspectors access to the site where the uranium particles had been found.

They took more samples there and “will evaluate the results of all of the environmental samples taken at this location and the information acquired from the planned visit to the site, and may conduct follow-up activities, as necessary”, Dahl said on Tuesday.

In an interview with The Associated Press news agency in June during a visit to Damascus, Grossi said al-Sharaa had expressed an interest in pursuing nuclear energy for Syria in the future. The IAEA said Syria granted its inspectors access to the location for a second time to gather more samples.

A number of other countries in the region are pursuing nuclear energy in some form. Grossi said Syria would most likely be looking into small modular reactors, which are cheaper and easier to deploy than traditional large ones.

He also said the IAEA is prepared to help Syria rebuild the radiotherapy, nuclear medicine and oncology infrastructure in a health system severely weakened by nearly 14 years of civil war.

Syria is marking its first International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances since the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad, as the country grapples with lingering questions over the fate of the many thousands who disappeared during the country’s civil war.

In a report released on Saturday to coincide with the annual commemoration, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said this year holds “particular significance” as it received a major increase in the number of cases since al-Assad was toppled in December.

Desperate families flocked to former detention centres, prisons, morgues, and mass grave sites to try to find their missing relatives after al-Assad’s removal, and investigators gained unprecedented access to government documents, witness accounts and human remains.

“A limited number of detainees were released alive, while the fate of tens of thousands remained unknown, rendering them forcibly disappeared,” SNHR said on Saturday. “This revealed a major tragedy that affected Syrian society as a whole.”

The rights group said in its report that at least 177,057 people, including 4,536 children and 8,984 women, were forcibly disappeared in Syria between March 2011 and August 2025.

It estimated that the former government was responsible for more than 90 percent of those cases.

“Al-Assad’s regime has systematically adopted a policy of enforced disappearance to terrorize and collectively punish society, targeting dissidents and civilians from various regions and affiliations,” SNHR said.

This year’s International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances comes just months after a new Syrian government was established under the leadership of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Al-Sharaa has pledged to address the enforced disappearances, issuing a presidential decree in May that established a National Commission for Transitional Justice and a National Commission for Missing Persons (NCMP).

The bodies are tasked with investigating questions of accountability, reparations and national reconciliation, among other issues. Al-Sharaa has also pledged to punish those responsible for mass killings and other violations.

On Saturday, Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said enforced disappearances would remain a “national priority” for the country. “It can only be resolved by providing justice to the victims, revealing the truth, and restoring dignity to their families,” the ministry said.

The head of the NCMP, Mohammad Reda Jalkhi, also said that while “Syria faces a daunting task … [the] families of the missing have the right to full and effective investigations”.

Independence and resources

Rights advocates have welcomed the Syrian government’s early steps on enforced disappearances, including the establishment of the NCMP. But they stress that the commission must be independent and get all the resources it needs to be effective.

“Truth, justice and reparations for Syria’s disappeared must be treated as an urgent state priority,” Kristine Beckerle, deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said in a statement this week.

The NCMP must have “adequate resources and the highest levels of cooperation across all state institutions”, Beckerle said. “With each day that passes, the torment of families waiting for answers about the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones grows.”

The Syrian Network for Human Rights also said the new commissions’ effectiveness “depends on their actual independence and full access to information and documents”.

“The legal frameworks regulating their work must be formulated to ensure the representation of victims and civil society, and to consolidate the comprehensiveness of justice, from truth-telling to accountability, reparations, and prevention of recurrence,” the group said.

On Saturday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the disappearance of a family member was “not just a personal tragedy, but one of the deepest and most prolonged human wounds of the Syrian conflict”.

“The families of the missing deserve unwavering support and compassion to help them search for answers about the fate of their loved ones and put an end to their suffering,” Stephane Sakalian, head of the ICRC delegation in Syria, said in a statement.

“Their right to know is a fundamental humanitarian principle.”

Meanwhile, Syria’s state-run news agency SANA reported that an interactive website titled “Syria’s Prison Museum” was launched on Saturday to collect witness accounts of those detained in al-Assad’s detention centres, including the infamous Sednaya prison.

The platform, put together by journalists and activists, aims to be both a memorial and forensic archive to facilitate the push for accountability.

The United Nations estimates that al-Assad’s government ran more than 100 detention facilities and an unknown number of secret sites.

Under al-Assad, Syrian state officials used several techniques to punish real and perceived opponents, including whipping, sleep deprivation and electrocution.

Syria’s foreign minister accuses Israel of violating a 1974 agreement to advance its ‘expansionist and partition plans’.

Syria has condemned a new “military incursion” by Israel in the southwestern Damascus countryside area outside the capital, calling it a “grave threat to regional peace”, in the wake of the two sides recently holding talks in Paris on de-escalating the conflict in southern Syria.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani accused Israel on Monday of violating the 1974 Disengagement Agreement by establishing intelligence facilities and military posts in demilitarised areas to advance its “expansionist and partition plans”.

Al-Shaibani made the remarks at an emergency meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) foreign ministers to discuss Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

The latest Israeli military action in Syria follows deadly clashes in the Druze-majority Syrian province of Suwayda, where a week of sectarian violence in July killed 1,400 people before a ceasefire put an end to the bloodshed. Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops and also bombed the heart of the capital, Damascus, under the pretext of protecting the Druze.

Al-Sharaa will be first Syrian leader to address UNGA

In the meantime, it was announced that Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa will speak at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September, the first Syrian leader to do so in decades, as the nation seeks to rebuild and reengage with the international community after 14 years of ruinous civil war and the fall of longtime leader Bashar al-Assad.

In the more than 50 years that the al-Assad dynasty ruled Syria, neither Hafez al-Assad nor his son, Bashar, ever addressed the annual gathering of world leaders in New York.

“He will be the first Syrian president to speak at the United Nations since former President Nureddin al-Atassi (in 1967), and the first Syrian president ever to take part in the General Assembly’s high-level week,” scheduled for September 22-30, a Syrian official told the AFP news agency on Monday.

Al-Sharaa, who took power in December after leading rebels on a lightning advance to Damascus that toppled al-Assad, remains under UN sanctions and a travel ban due to his past as a fighter, and must request an exemption for all foreign trips.

In April, al-Shaibani addressed the UN for the first time and raised his country’s new flag at the body’s New York headquarters.

Since taking power, Syria’s new authorities have gained regional and international support, both diplomatic and financial, securing critical economic lifelines to reconstruct the devastated country.

Damascus signed 12 agreements worth $14bn this month, including a $4bn agreement with Qatar’s UCC Holding to build a new airport and a $2bn deal to establish a subway in Damascus with the national investment corporation of the United Arab Emirates.

Al-Sharaa met United States President Donald Trump in May in Saudi Arabia, a week after meeting French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on his first trip to the West.

Both the US and the European Union have lifted longstanding sanctions on Syria.

Syria will hold parliamentary elections in September, a week before the UNGA meeting.

They will be the first to take place under the country’s new authorities after the fall of al-Assad. One-third of the 210 seats will be appointed by al-Sharaa, with the rest to be elected.

The clashes in March included murder, torture and other ‘inhumane acts’ that UN investigators say amount to war crimes.

War crimes were likely committed by members of interim government forces and fighters aligned with former President Bashar al-Assad during an outbreak of sectarian violence in Syria’s coastal areas in March, according to a United Nations report.

Some 1,400 people, mainly civilians, were reported killed during the violence that primarily targeted Alawite communities, and reports of violations have continued, according to the report released on Thursday by the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry.

“The scale and brutality of the violence documented in our report is deeply disturbing,” said Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, chair of the commission, in a statement.

Torture, killings and inhumane acts related to the treatment of the dead were documented by the UN team, which based its research on more than 200 interviews with victims and witnesses, as well as visits to mass grave sites.

“The violations included acts that likely amount to war crimes,” the UN investigators said.

Alawite men were separated from women and children, then led away and killed, the report found.

“Bodies were left in the streets for days, with families prevented from conducting burials in accordance with religious rites, while others were buried in mass graves without proper documentation,” the commission said.

Hospitals became overwhelmed as a result of the killings.

The commission found that even while the interim government’s forces sought to stop violations and protect civilians, certain members “extrajudicially executed, tortured and ill-treated civilians in multiple [Alawite] majority villages and neighbourhoods in a manner that was both widespread and systematic”.

However, the report said the commission “found no evidence of a governmental policy or plan to carry out such attacks”. It also found that pro-Assad armed groups had committed “acts that likely amount to crimes, including war crimes” during the violence.

“We call on the interim authorities to continue to pursue accountability for all perpetrators, regardless of affiliation or rank,” Pinheiro said.

“While dozens of alleged perpetrators of violations have reportedly since been arrested, the scale of the violence documented in our report warrants expanding such efforts.”

The incidents in the coastal region were the worst violence in Syria since al-Assad was toppled last December, prompting the interim government to name a fact-finding committee.

The committee in July said it had identified 298 suspects implicated in serious violations during the violence in the country’s Alawite heartland.

The committee’s report then stated there was no evidence that Syria’s military leadership ordered attacks on the Alawite community.

Syrian authorities have accused gunmen loyal to al-Assad of instigating the violence, launching deadly attacks that killed dozens of security personnel.

According to the commission, the deadly attacks by pro-former government fighters began after Syrian interim authorities launched an arrest operation on March 6.

The government committee said 238 members of the army and security forces were killed in the attacks in the provinces of Tartous, Latakia and Hama.

Government source says recent Kurdish-led conference ‘dealt blow’ to talks on implementing a March integration deal.

Syria’s new government will not take part in planned meetings with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Paris, Syria’s state news agency has reported, as tensions mount between the two sides.

SANA’s report on Saturday cast doubt over an integration deal signed this year by the armed group and Syria’s interim government, which took over after the overthrow of longtime President Bashar al-Assad in December.

Quoting an unnamed government source, the news agency said the government wants future negotiations to be held in the Syrian capital, Damascus, “as it is the legitimate and national address for dialogue among Syrians”.

The SDF was the main force allied with the United States in Syria during fighting that defeated ISIL (ISIS) in 2019. In March, the SDF signed a deal with the new government to join Syria’s state institutions.

The deal aims to stitch back together a country fractured by 14 years of war, paving the way for Kurdish-led forces that hold a quarter of Syria and regional Kurdish governing bodies to integrate with Damascus.

However, the agreement did not specify how the SDF will be merged with Syria’s armed forces. The group has previously said its forces must join as a bloc while the government wants them to join as individuals.

Saturday’s report comes a day after the Kurdish administration held a conference involving several Syrian minority communities, the first such event since al-Assad’s removal from power.

The conference’s final statement called for “a democratic constitution that … establishes a decentralised state” and guarantees the participation of all components of Syrian society.

Damascus has previously rejected calls for decentralisation.

In its report on Saturday, SANA said the government “stresses that the SDF conference dealt a blow to the ongoing negotiation efforts” towards implementing the March agreement.

“Accordingly, the government will not participate in any meetings scheduled in Paris, nor will it sit at the negotiating table with any side seeking to revive the era of the deposed regime under any name or cover,” the report said.

Participants in the Kurdish-organised conference also criticised the government over sectarian clashes in Syria’s southern province of Suwayda and the coastal region.

“The current constitutional declaration does not meet the aspirations of the Syrian people. … It should be reviewed to ensure a wider participatory process and a fair representation in the transitional period,” the conference’s final statement read.

The dispute is the latest in a recent conflict between the Syrian administration and the SDF after clashes between the group and government forces this month.

The SDF on Saturday accused government-backed factions of attacking areas in northeastern Syria more than 22 times.

It said it had exercised restraint during such “aggressions” but the continuation of attacks “threatens mutual trust and undermines understandings”.

Syria’s fledgling government has sought investment to reconstruct the country after its devastating yearslong civil war.

Syria has signed a series of investment deals with international companies, covering 12 major strategic projects in infrastructure, transportation and real estate valued at a total of $14bn, the latest lifeline aimed at reviving its war-ravaged economy.

The plans included a $4bn investment project for Damascus airport signed with Qatar’s UCC Holding and a $2bn deal with the United Arab Emirates national investment corporation to establish a metro in the Syrian capital, Talal al-Hilali, head of the Syrian Investment Authority, said during the ceremony at the presidential palace in Damascus on Wednesday.

It’s a welcome development for President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s new government as it has been grappling with the heavy fallout from sectarian violence that broke out on July 13 in the southern province of Suwayda between Bedouin and Druze fighters. Government troops were deployed to quell the conflict. The bloodshed worsened, and Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops and also bombed the heart of the capital Damascus, under the pretext of protecting the Druze.

Other major developments on the investment front destined for Damascus include the $2bn Damascus Towers project signed with the Italian-based company UBAKO, a $500m deal for the Baramkeh Towers project and another $60m agreement for Baramkeh Mall.

Since the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December in a lightning rebel offensive, Syria’s new authorities have worked to attract investment for the reconstruction of infrastructure destroyed in the country’s devastating, nearly 14-year-long civil war.

The projects “will extend across Syria and represent a qualitative shift in infrastructure and economic life”, al-Hilali said on Wednesday, adding that the agreements were “a turning point” for Syria’s future.

Al-Sharaa and United States special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack were both present at the signing ceremony, Syria’s official SANA news agency reported on Wednesday.

Barrack congratulated Syrian authorities on “another great accomplishment”, saying they will witness the rise of a “new hub” in “trade and prosperity”.

The United Nations has put Syria’s post-war reconstruction costs at more than $400bn. Several deals have already been announced.

Last month, Saudi Arabia signed major investment and partnership deals with Syria, valued at $6.4bn.

Also in July, Syria signed an $800m deal with UAE-based company DP World to develop the port of Tartous, state media reported.

In May, Syria signed a $7bn energy deal with a consortium of Qatari, Turkish and US companies as it seeks to revive its crippled power sector.

The US and European Union have recently lifted sanctions on Syria in the wake of al-Assad’s ouster, opening the nation to further investment and trade deals.

Defence Ministry accuses Kurdish-led SDF of injuring four army personnel and three civilians in rocket attack near Manbij.

Syria’s Ministry of Defence has accused the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) of carrying out a rocket attack on a military position in northern Syria, injuring four army personnel and three civilians.

In a statement carried by Syria’s official SANA news agency, the ministry said the military was able to repel the attack in the countryside of the city of Manbij.

“The army forces are working to deal with the sources of fire that targeted the civilian villages near the deployment lines,” the ministry said, adding in a later statement that the military was carrying out “precise strikes”.

But the United States-backed SDF said in a statement that it was responding to “an unprovoked artillery assault targeting civilian-populated areas with more than ten shells” from factions operating within Syrian government ranks.

The statement made no mention of casualties.

The incident comes after the SDF signed a deal in March with Syria’s new interim government to integrate into state institutions.

The SDF has controlled a semi-autonomous region in the northeastern part of the country since 2015, and the deal, if implemented, would bring that territory under the full control of Syria’s central government, led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Al-Sharaa led the lightning rebel offensive that toppled longtime Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December last year.

Discussions over the integration of the SDF into the Syrian state had been ongoing since the fall of al-Assad, but were hampered by divides fostered over years of civil war.

The deal reached in March did not specify how the SDF would be merged with the Syrian armed forces.

The SDF has previously said its forces must join as a bloc, while Damascus wants them to join as individuals.

“While we reaffirm our commitment to respecting the current de-escalation arrangements, we call on the relevant authorities in the Syrian government to take responsibility and bring the undisciplined factions under their control,” the SDF said in its statement.

Health Ministry says four killed, 116 others wounded after explosion in Maarat Misrin in the northern Idlib countryside.

At least four people have been killed and more than 100 others were wounded in an explosion in Idlib province, northwestern Syria, state news agency SANA reported.

In a statement on Thursday, carried by SANA, Syria’s Ministry of Health said that the explosion occurred in the town of Maarat Misrin in the northern Idlib countryside.

It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion.

The ministry said that “four people were killed and 116 others were wounded,” according to a preliminary death toll.

The Syria Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, said at least six people were killed in the blast.

“This is the death toll only of those recovered by Syria Civil Defence teams, who continue to search for those trapped under the rubble,” the White Helmets said in a statement.

Raed Al-Saleh, Syria’s minister of emergency and disaster management, said in a post on X that the country’s Civil Defence teams rushed to the scene of the blast and were working in dangerous and complex conditions.

He said the teams were carrying out evacuation and rescue operations amid ongoing secondary blasts.

Saleh urged residents to avoid the site for their own safety.

The blast was the third in the region this month. Earlier in July, two explosions rocked the Kafriya and al-Fu’ah regions.

A fragile ceasefire in Syria’s mainly Druze city of Suwayda appears to be holding after Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa announced a new truce on Saturday following a week of fighting. Gov’t forces deployed to clear Bedouin fighters out of the governorate.

Syria’s security forces have begun deploying in the restive southern province of Suwayda, a Ministry of Interior spokesperson has said, where heavy fighting between Druze and Bedouin armed groups and government forces has left hundreds dead, compounded by Israeli military intervention.

The deployment on Saturday came hours after the United States announced that Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire, an as yet uncertain truce amidst overnight fighting.

Syria’s government announced the ceasefire early on Saturday, saying in a statement it is being enacted “to spare Syrian blood, preserve the unity of Syrian territory, the safety of its people”.

The country’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in a televised address, stated that he “received international calls to intervene in what is happening in Suwayda and restore security to the country”.

Israeli intervention has “reignited tensions” in the city, with fighting there “a dangerous turning point”, he said, also thanking the US for its support.

Earlier, Interior Ministry spokesman Noureddine al-Baba had said in a statement on Telegram that “internal security forces have begun deploying in Suwayda province … with the aim of protecting civilians and putting an end to the chaos.”

Ethnically charged clashes between Druze and Bedouin armed groups and government forces have reportedly left hundreds dead in recent days.

On Wednesday, Israel launched heavy air attacks on Syria’s Ministry of Defence in the heart of Damascus, and also hit Syrian government forces in the Suwayda region, claiming it had done so to protect the Druze, who it calls its “brothers”.

Communities in Suwayda are ‘noble people’

“Al-Sharaa said that national unity was a priority for his government and that part of the role of the government was to be a neutral referee between all parties,” said Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall, reporting from the capital Damascus.

“He praised the people of Suwayda, other than the few elements that wanted to sow trouble, saying that both Druze and Arab communities in the city were noble people.”

It was unclear whether Syrian troops reached Suwayda city as of Saturday morning or were still on the city’s outskirts, Vall said.

Bedouin tribal fighters had been waiting to hear more from the government about the ceasefire, while Druze leaders have varying attitudes on it – some welcoming it, and others pledging to continue fighting, he added.

Fighting has “been going on throughout the night”, but the deployment of Syria’s internal security forces was “welcome news” to many in the city, Vall said.

On Friday, an Israeli official, who declined to be named, told reporters that in light of the “ongoing instability in southwest Syria”, Israel had agreed to allow the “limited entry of the [Syrian] internal security forces into Suwayda district for the next 48 hours”.

According to Syria’s Health Ministry, the death toll from fighting in the Druze-majority city is now at least 260. An estimated 80,000 people have fled the area, according to the International Organization for Migration.

“A lot of extrajudicial killings [are] being reported,” said Vall. “People are suffering, even those who have been killed or forced to flee, they don’t have electricity, they don’t have water, because most of those services have been badly affected by the fighting.”

‘Zero-sum formula of territorial expansion and concurrent wars’

The Reuters news agency on Saturday reported that Syria’s government misread how Israel would respond to its troops deploying to the country’s south this week, encouraged by US messaging that Syria should be governed as a centralised state.

Damascus believed it had a green light from both the US and Israel to dispatch its forces south to Suwayda, despite months of Israeli warnings not to do so, Reuters reported, quoting several sources, including Syrian political and military officials, two diplomats, and regional security sources.

That understanding was based on public and private comments from US special envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack, as well as security talks with Israel, the sources said.

Analysts say Israel’s attacks have “less to do with the minority Druze community and more with a strategic Israeli objective to create a new reality,” said Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh.

“It’s part of Israel trying to show that it is the hegemonic power in the Middle East.”

She added: “It’s a zero-sum formula of territorial expansion and concurrent wars. Endless war on Gaza, relentless attacks on Lebanon, strikes on Yemen, threats of resumed hostilities with Iran and in Syria, territorial expansion, [and] direct military intervention.

“This contradicts the Trump administration’s declared policy of seeking to expand normalisation deals with Israel in the region, which the new government in Syria had welcomed and entertained before this crisis,” said Odeh.

US ambassador says truce was ‘supported’ by the US and ’embraced’ by Turkiye, Jordan and Syria’s neighbours.

Syria and Israel have agreed to a ceasefire, US ambassador to Turkiye, Tom Barrack, has announced, drawing an uneasy truce between the neighbours after days of air strikes and sectarian bloodshed in Syria’s southwestern Suwayda region.

Barrack said in a post on X early on Saturday that the ceasefire between Syria and Israel was “supported” by Washington and “embraced” by Turkiye, Jordan and Syria’s neighbours.

In his post announcing the ceasefire, Barrack said the US called “upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity in peace and prosperity with its neighbors “.

There has been no comment yet from Syrian or Israeli officials.

An Israeli official, who declined to be named, told reporters on Friday that in light of the “ongoing instability in southwest Syria”, Israel had agreed to allow the “limited entry of the [Syrian] internal security forces into Suwayda district for the next 48 hours”.

On Wednesday, Israel launched heavy air strikes targeting Syria’s Ministry of Defence in the heart of Damascus, and also hit Syrian government forces in the country’s Suwayda region.

Israel claims it has launched attacks to protect Syria’s Druze minority in Suwayda, where ethnically charged clashes between Druze and Bedouin armed groups and government forces have reportedly left hundreds dead.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the Druze, who number about one million in Syria – mostly concentrated in Suwayda – and 150,000 in Israel, as “brothers”.

A ceasefire agreement mediated by the US, Turkiye and Arab countries was reached between Druze leaders and the Syrian government on Wednesday. Israel, however, launched air strikes on Syria the same day, killing at least three people and wounding 34 others.

Following the Israeli attacks, Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa said in a televised speech early on Thursday that protecting the country’s Druze citizens and their rights was a priority, and though Syria would prefer to avoid a conflict with Israel, it was not afraid of war.

Al-Sharaa added that Syria would overcome attempts by Israel to tear the country apart through its aggression.

Heavy fighting again flared up between the Druze and Bedouin tribes in Suwayda on Friday, and Damascus has redeployed a dedicated force to restore calm in the Druze-majority governorate.