Why Israel has stepped up its strikes on Syria ?

Photo: Omar Sanadiki Associated Press Security officers and rescue workers gather outside a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Damascus, Syria, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024.

Layal Abou Rahal – Agence France-Presse in Beirut

Published at 12:31

• Middle East

Israeli strikes in Syria last week killed about a hundred fighters from pro-Iranian armed groups, the heaviest toll since Israel stepped up its raids on Syrian territory, in parallel with its war in Lebanon.

Why this escalation and what reactions has it provoked within the “axis of resistance,” the name given by Iran to a group of groups supported by Tehran and enemies of Israel?

What targets in Syria?

Since September 26, shortly after the start of open war in Lebanon between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, Israel has continued to bomb Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has recorded 86 attacks that killed 39 civilians, as well as 199 Syrian soldiers or fighters from pro-Iranian groups, including Hezbollah or Iraqi or Palestinian factions.

On November 20, three raids on Palmyra (center) killed 106 fighters, according to the SOHR, based in the United Kingdom and which has a vast network of sources in Syria.

According to the NGO, this is the heaviest single-day death toll of this type attacks since the start of the conflict in Syria in 2011.

Among these dead were 73 fighters from Syrian groups, in addition to 29 non-Syrian fighters, mostly from the Iraqi al-Noujaba movement, and four Lebanese from Hezbollah, according to the SOHR.

On Monday evening, Israel bombed the Joussieh border crossing between Lebanon and Syria, the latest in a series of raids recently carried out on several crossing points.

“Given the high number of raids, Syria is de facto one of the battlefields of Israel's wars,” the director of the SOHR, Rami Abdel Rahmane, told AFP.

The targets are official or informal border crossings, residential apartments, particularly in Damascus, the headquarters of the pro-Iranian factions and Hezbollah weapons depots, he said.

Why the escalation ?

Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria targeting regime forces and pro-Iranian allies.

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Even while occasionally confirming its strikes, Israel has hammered home its refusal to see Syria become Tehran’s bridgehead.

In the last two months, the Israeli army has assured that its objective was also to prevent Hezbollah from “transferring” weapons used in attacks against Israel from Syria to Lebanon.

On Monday, it specified that the bombing of Jousieh aimed to “target the Syrian regime’s arms transport routes” on the border.

With the war in Lebanon, “the balance of deterrence” between Israel and Hezbollah has “collapsed,” says analyst Sam Heller.

Without “fear of retaliation” from Hezbollah, Israel “bombs Lebanon at will, in addition to targets in Syria allegedly linked to Hezbollah and Iran,” he summarizes.

Apparent objective: “to permanently weaken Hezbollah” by targeting its “logistical supply chains via Syria.”

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What reactions?

Damascus has castigated the “repeated aggressions” of Israel, accusing it of seeking to “expand the scope of its aggression towards countries in the region”.

Aside from these “traditional condemnations,” Heller explains, Damascus “doesn’t have many other options: Syria is exhausted by more than a decade” of war and economic collapse.

“Syria’s role is not to confront Israel,” a source close to Hezbollah tells AFP, stressing its “logistical” importance.

This country “represents the supply line from Iran, through Iraq, to ​​Hezbollah,” he says.

It confirms Tehran and Baghdad’s fears of being in Israel’s sights in turn, even in the event of a truce in Lebanon.

Israeli diplomacy has recently called for “immediate action” from the UN so that Iraq stops the attacks by “pro-Iranian militias”, recalling Israel's right “to take all necessary measures to protect itself”.

Because the Iraqi armed groups forming the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” claim daily drone strikes against Israel, in solidarity with Gaza and Lebanon.

The Israeli army announces that it shoots down the overwhelming majority of these projectiles. In early October, however, a drone killed two Israeli soldiers in the Syrian Golan Heights, occupied and annexed by Israel.

After the announcement of Israeli diplomacy, Iraq reacted by accusing Israel of seeking “pretexts” to “justify” a “planned aggression” against Iraqi territory.

However, Baghdad also said it was working to “prevent” the territory “from being used to launch any attack.”

“For over a year, Iraq has managed to stay relatively out of the regional war,” confirms analyst Renad Mansour, citing the commitment made in this regard by both Washington and Tehran: “both wanted stability in Iraq.”

But “in this period of transition between US Presidents Biden and Trump, the Iraqi government fears that Netanyahu will have even more leeway to attack the entire axis of resistance,” summarizes Mr. Mansour.