[News] Will The Israelis Occupy Damascus?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

english.almayadeen.net
<https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/will-the-israelis-occupy-damascus>
Will The Israelis Occupy Damascus?
Robert Inlakesh
December 12, 2025
------------------------------

In one year, the Israeli regime has occupied 400+ km² of southern Syria
with near-total impunity, while the Syrian leadership avoids confronting
Tel Aviv, leaving the nation vulnerable.

   - [image: Will The Israelis Occupy Damascus?]
   <https://alpha-en-media.almayadeen.net/media/image/2025/12/12/72cdafb6-b53f-4274-b928-6f67fb257c2e.png?width=1000>
   All of this being said, it is clear that Syrians will eventually be forced
   to resist their occupiers (Illustrated by Ali al-Hadi Chmeis to *Al
   Mayadeen English*)

A year has passed since the fall of the previous Syrian leadership, during
which internecine conflict has raged on, distracting from the fact that the
Israelis have occupied enormous swaths of territory and are acting inside
the country with total impunity.

In one year, the Zionist entity has conquered over 400 square kilometers of
territory inside southern Syria. Except for a few isolated cases of local
resistance against the occupying regime, they have faced no pushback
whatsoever. In fact, such a retreat from confronting an overt campaign to
occupy a nation's territory and rob it of its sovereignty, makes the
predicament of the country unique in history.

Inside Syria, according to recent polling data, 96% of the population have
negative views of the Israeli regime, which when you consider the support
provided to non-State actors inside Syria and propaganda campaigns
targeting minority groups, makes it clear that the people stand united in
their rejection of it. No amount of deception, nor the co-opting of
leadership can change this fact amongst the majority of the Syrian people.

Even the most ardent supporters of Syrian President, Ahmed al-Shara’a, have
repeatedly chanted slogans against the Israelis and in support of Gaza. It
is therefore a logical contradiction, that most of these individuals appear
incapable of criticizing their leadership for holding direct meetings with
Israeli officials, inviting in Zionist delegations, allowing Israeli
citizens to visit Damascus and even providing an Israeli journalist a tour
of military sites.

The behaviour of the Syrian leadership when it comes to the US is also
clearly out of line with the branding and rhetoric that many of the
fighters belonging to the governing Hayat Tahrir al-Sham coalition adopt.
This is to say, you can’t on the one hand chant in favour of liberating
Palestine and claim to be fighting a religiously motivated war, while your
leader is playing ball [quite literally] with CENTCOM. Even justifying this
behaviour on the basis of sectarianism or along nationalist lines does not
explain the cognitive dissonance on display here.

All of this being said, it is clear that Syrians will eventually be forced
to resist their occupiers. So far, despite the promises of economic
prosperity and pandering to the West in order to remove the criminal US
sanctions on Syria, the great bounce back of the State has not
materialised. This is also a failed strategy; to depend on the US. It is
clear that Washington is holding the sanctions card over the heads of
Syrians in order to keep Damascus in line.
Will The Israelis Conquer Damascus?

Another clear threat is that if the Syrian leadership loses its usefulness
to the Israelis and instead becomes a nuisance, it is very likely that “Tel
Aviv” will order the assassination of Ahmed al-Shara’a. However, a direct
airstrike on his position will not be the most likely means of delivering
this blow, because it would almost certainly trigger some kind of reaction.

Instead, as various Israeli military analysts and think-tanks are beginning
to speak of more frequently now, it is more likely that an assassination
operation will take place on the ground using proxies or attempting to
blame it on a specific group.

While it is also plausible that any armed group could attempt to
assassinate the current Syrian leader, as there are many grievances between
various organisations in the country, an Israeli operation is indeed a very
likely possibility. If this was pulled off, the calculation is that almost
immediately there will be a power struggle between rival Syrian groups.

As such battles begin to determine the future leadership, the Israelis will
be given a free hand to run incursions deep into the country’s territory.
Not only will they likely physically carve out a direct route to Sweida in
the south, if the conditions permit it, an initiative to enter Damascus may
evolve.

At this current time, such an operation would be met with a unified defense
and Ahmed al-Shara’a would not have any choice in such a matter, which is
why it won’t happen. However, for the Israelis, the symbolism of raising
their flag in the Syrian capital will be very meaningful for their
so-called “Greater Israel” vision. To be clear, it is not likely that they
would stay there, but it is certain that they would seek to achieve the
photo-op.

For the Israelis, symbolic victories like these are of great importance to
them. Last year, during its failed ground invasion in southern Lebanon,
countless Israeli analysts lamented the fact that its military could no
longer reach the Litani River and noted that prior to Hezbollah, they were
able to reach Beirut and plant an Israeli flag.

At the end of the October 1973 war, the Israeli military violated the
ceasefire under the direct threat of the Soviet Union becoming involved to
aid Egypt, which they pledged could happen if it was to come within 100
kilometers of Cairo. The Zionist military was ordered to come within 99
kilometers of the Egyptian capital and carve out a piece of pavement on the
Suez-Cairo road.

It is clear that Syria’s leadership will not dare to launch a defensive
campaign against the invading Israeli army at this time, in fact they
refuse to even threaten any military response. Instead, they seek to work
through the United States to appeal to the Israelis; that they not create
too many issues for them.

If you read the Israeli Hebrew media, it is clear they view Syria, not as a
country, but as a region to be exploited. To them, it is a territory that
must be viewed with caution, but is no major threat to it beyond the
possibility that armed militia groups will decide at some point to turn
their guns on them.

What we are currently watching is the Israeli honeymoon phase in its
relationship with the new Syria, which appears to be heading towards
expiry. This era has enabled the mass occupation of Syrian territory, while
the Israelis have sought to weaponise sectarian divides to their own
benefit.

Despite the mobilisation of Syrian armed units, alongside allied militias
and Bedouin tribal fighters, all to battle fellow Syrians, they have never
once been deployed to deal with the single greatest threat to the nation's
sovereignty. Instead, these forces are only mobilised to fight against
Alawites in the coastal regions, or to the greatest pleasure of the
Israelis, the Druze in Sweida.

Keep in mind that the current government of Syria is run by Hayat Tahrir
al-Sham (HTS), which is a rebrand of al-Nusra Front. The Nusra Front was
formally backed by the Zionist entity and its fighters had even received
medical attention in Israeli field hospitals. In 2013, the occupying regime
began backing over a dozen Syrian opposition groups, many of them aligned
with Al-Qaeda and even Daesh at different phases of the war.

What convinced the Druze militia forces to join the side of Bashar al-Assad
in the war, were a series of sectarian massacres committed against their
people. Now, the Israelis are swooping in, claiming to be the saviour of
the Syrian Druze, following attacks from many of the militant groups they
once supported. This is to say that the Zionists will use anyone at any
given time, depending upon what benefits there are in doing so.

Also in 2013, the Israelis had begun to devise a number plans for their new
Syria “buffer zone” and expressed particular interest in backing a Druze
puppet regime, one that would allow for them to carve out a direct supply
route to this territory, through the occupied Golan Heights. The Zionist
entity would later take advantage of the gains made by the Kurdish-led
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the northeast of the country, forming
relations with them too.

The blueprint for carving up the Syrian State into a series of
dysfunctional sectarian regimes - all of which will be forced to depend
upon foreign handouts in order to function - was already drawn up over a
decade ago.

It is no coincidence that the Israeli air force launched its largest ever
air campaign against Syria, taking out most of the nation's military assets
and strategic arsenal, on the same day the former regime fell. This was an
air operation that had been drawn up many years prior, but hadn’t happened
because there was never an opportunity to initiate it.

Now that the country is in a totally dysfunctional and divided state, the
Israeli goal is to exacerbate all feuds, then jump at the opportunity to
gnaw even more off of the Syrian carcass. Unless there emerges a formidable
resistance force inside of Syria, the country will continue to be subjected
to the will of “Tel Aviv”.

Yet, given the apparent refusal of many inside Syria to deal with the
reality that their government has bent the knee to the US and Israeli
regime, it may quite literally take the Merkava tanks arriving in Damascus
for them to realise the catastrophe that has befallen their nation. It is a
painful pill to swallow, yet the truth is that Syria is just as much an
occupied nation as is Palestine.
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