Israel

Since the fall of Damascus to the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham Salafist Jihadi group, the IDF has been operating in the UN DMZ located between Israel’s Golan Heights and Syria. This DMZ was set up in agreement between Israel and the Assad regime in 1974 after Israel agreed to pull back from the Bashan Salient it had captured in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. With Assad gone, the DMZ and the agreement that established are essentially gone as well. 

Since the IDF captured the Syrian Hermon and moved into the DMZ there have been conflicting reports on just how far the IDF has reached into Syria. Arab media insist that the IDF’s armored corps can be see as far as 3 km from the city of Qanata, which puts it within 15km of Damascus. The same media insists the IDF captured many Druze and Christian villages along the way - essentially reestablishing the old Bashan Salient.

For its part, the IDF has insisted that it is only operating within the buffer zone and has not ventured farther.

So what is the truth here? Is the IDF on its way to Damascus or is just Arab propaganda? The fact is, videos have surfaced of IDF tanks in the Druze village of Hader that lies just on the other side of the DMZ’s Bravo line. Hader is the Druze village closest to the Israeli Druze Golan village of Majdal Shams. The two villages residents are actually relatives who have not visited one another since 1967 except for under specific situations.

Liberating Hader and the Druze villages that lie on the slopes of the Hermon ridge may bring Israel extremely close to Damascus, but it is key to ensuring Druze loyalty in the Golan as well as protecting the Druze from Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham who see the minority as apostates. It ultimately, extends Israel’s buffer zone while fulfilling out promise to protect minorities in the area.

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Buffer Zone Expansion

The current activity by the IDF in areas beyond the DMZ may appear to contradict official statements, but only if you don’t see the larger picture. Israel’s original buffer zone in 1973 was the Bashan Salient as has been mentioned many times. The IDF appears to use this demarcation in its broadest sense when describing their actions. Reestablishing the Bashan Salient reunites Syria’s southwestern Druze communities while giving the IDF a commanding view as well as control over the southern approach to Damascus.

So is the IDF heading to Damascus? Right now that is not the plan, after all controlling the heights of the Hermon and the Druze area closest may be enough. Once one factors in drones and aerial dominance Israel can essentially control what goes on while remaining out of the internal feuds that are already occurring within Damascus itself. What is important to Israel now and their natural Druze allies is that some sort of Druze and Christian dominated enclave rise. That region is still called Hauran – perhaps it will (with Israel’s help) regain the autonomy it was meant to have.