Israel Zeroes Out Syrian Military Before Hezbollah Can Seize It

We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

Joe Biden abandoned billions of dollars in materiel to the Taliban after bugging out of Kabul, not to mention 14,000 Americans. The Taliban now use American heavy arms to pursue its radical Islamist ambitions in Afghanistan and routinely parade them to demonstrate their power.

One may forgive Israel for learning a lesson from that collapse. Rather than allow Hezbollah or other radical-Islamist factions in the Syrian rebellion to seize the military assets of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the IDF has conducted a systematic campaign to zero out the threat those weapons systems pose to Israel:

Israel pounded Syrian army bases on Tuesday in strikes it says aim to keep weapons from falling into hostile hands, but denied its forces had advanced into Syria beyond a buffer zone at the border.

Regional security sources and officers within the now-fallen Syrian army who spoke to Reuters described Tuesday morning’s airstrikes as the heaviest yet, hitting military installations and airbases across Syria, destroying dozens of helicopters and jets, as well as Republican Guard assets in and around Damascus.

The rough tally of 200 raids overnight had left nothing of the Syrian army’s assets, said the sources.

It’s not just the Syrian army, either. The Israelis claim to have also destroyed their naval assets in the last 24 hours. They also want this to be a warning to the rebels in Damascus that Israel will not countenance a new threat from Syria in the future:

The Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, said his country “destroyed Syria’s navy overnight, and with great success.” His remarks appeared to confirm Israel’s responsibility for the destruction overnight in the port city of Latakia, formerly a stronghold of Syria’s ousted leader, Bashar al-Assad. Israel’s military “has been operating in Syria in recent days to hit and destroy strategic capabilities that pose a threat to Israel,” Katz said while visiting an Israeli naval base.“I warn the rebel leaders in Syria: Those who follow Assad’s path will end like Assad.”

And of course, the IDF has targeted and destroyed Syrian air defenses, just in case the rebels do get any ideas of offensive operations to the south:

Israel’s air force carried out about 300 strikes in Syria in the early hours of Tuesday morning, according to Israeli security sources.

Most of the strikes were in southern Syria and around the city of Damascus, targeting Syrian army bases, with an emphasis on air defense systems and stores of surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles.

Israeli security sources indicate that these actions have significantly expanded the air force’s operational freedom.

When Hamas launched this war on October 7, 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu promised to change the region through the defeat of Israel’s enemies, and not just return to the status quo ante. In a press conference yesterday, Netanyahu emphasized that ambition and claimed credit for “transforming the face of the Middle East.” He also made clear that Israel would stick to its claim of the entire Golan region after the fall of Assad as an additional security measure after the Iranian proxy war of attempted annihilation:

Referencing Israel’s 1967 capture and subsequent annexation of the Golan Heights, Netanyahu said that “today, everyone understands the great importance of our presence there on the Golan, and not on the foothills of the Golan,” adding that Israel’s hold on the Golan guarantees its security and sovereignty.

The premier also thanked US President-elect Donald Trump for “recognizing Israeli sovereignty” in the Golan in 2019.

“The Golan Heights will forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel,” he said.

Netanyahu repeated his previous assertion that Assad’s fall was the “direct result of the heavy blows we landed on Hamas, on Hezbollah, and on Iran,” and said that ever since the October 7 attacks, Israel has been working in a “systematic, measured and orderly fashion” to dismantle the Iranian axis.

As for Hezbollah, the Israelis claim that the Iranian proxy army was attempting to scavenge Syria for military assets, necessitating the military sorties against Syrian military sites. Netanyahu declared them crippled by the loss of their leadership and remains determined to keep Hezbollah from reconstituting itself as a threat to Israel’s security:

Turning to Lebanon, Netanyahu stressed that slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had been the key link between Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. He was the “axis of the axis — strike him, and you hit the axis severely.”

“The elimination of Nasrallah was a turning point in the collapse of the axis,” he argued, adding that “Nasrallah is no longer with us, and the axis is not what it was.” Israel is “taking it apart step by step.”

The UN and Qatar are objecting to these operations, claiming that Israel is risking a peaceful transfer of power. That’s an unusual claim for a coup d’etat; the rebels didn’t win an election, after all. Assad fled rather than getting fragged by his own generals or strung up by the warriors who rolled into Damascus prepared for a war. This isn’t a “transfer” — it’s a seizing of power by an army, even if their enemies decided to flee rather than fight.

Oddly enough, the Russians are remaining rather silent about Israel’s actions. It’s not as though they don’t have a dog in the fight either; in fact, their aspirations to global power projection rely on their footprint in Syria. The rebels threaten that by potentially denying them the necessary bases for lines of communication to Africa. Russia has already moved its naval assets out of Latakia, coincidentally or not just before Israel wiped out the Syrian navy there:

 On Sunday, Ukrainian military intelligence said that Russia had pulled two ships from Tartus, and had transferred weapons from Hmeimim.

BI was unable to independently verify the report.

But satellite images captured by Planet Labs PBC show Russian warships that had been seen in Tartus earlier this month were gone as of Monday.

That doesn’t look like a coincidence from here. The Russians knew what was coming, either by direct communication or just by sensing the mood of the Israelis, and don’t want to get in the middle of it. Perhaps they hope that the rebels will see them as a potential ally down the road now that Syria has lost most of its national defenses, but given the Russian participation in Assad’s brutal regime, it may be a very long time before that calculation can be made. 

In the meantime, Israel wants to make sure that Iran and Hezbollah have nothing left of their 45-year project to destroy the Jewish state via Syria. And right now, no one’s really able to stop them from achieving success, which in itself shows just how successful Netanyahu has been in reshaping the region in 14 months.