How Syria has become significant battleground in shadow war between Iran and Israel

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Israel's independence in 1948 marked the beginning of a longstanding adversarial relationship with Syria.

Syria played a central role in the multifront Arab-Israeli wars in 1948, 1967, and 1973. Additionally, the Syrian military engaged in conflict with Israel in Lebanon in the early 1980s. While Egypt and Jordan eventually signed peace treaties with Israel, Syria has not done so.

Years of civil war have depleted the once powerful Syrian national military, reducing it mainly to “Assad’s army.” President Bashar al-Assad, who came to power in 2000, continues to lead Syria with the support of allies, such as Russia and Iran.

Prof. Eyal Zisser, an expert on Syria and Lebanon from Tel Aviv University, placed the Syrian threat to Israel in a historical context. He spoke about the Syrian military’s frequent shelling of Israeli civilian communities of Israel from the Golan Heights prior to the Six-Day War in 1967.

"We couldn't push it out of all the territory it occupied in Israel, and since has been a pesky and provocative enemy from the Golan Heights," Zisser said. Israel and Syria share a common border in the Golan Heights region.

As far back as 1965, Syria began sponsoring the Fatah party, which used Syrian territory to launch terror attacks against Israeli civilians in border communities. Syria also attempted to divert the Jordan River’s water sources, which were important for Israeli agriculture.

Despite its aggression toward Israel, Zisser believes the Syrian government was mainly seeking to placate its more powerful ally, Egypt, during the 1967 war.

"Their military actions were likely intended to create an alibi for themselves in response to Egyptian pressure to uphold their part of the defense agreement," he said.

However, Israel’s victory and Syria’s humiliating loss of the Golan Heights in 1967 reportedly motivated the Syrian regime to join the Egyptian surprise attack on the Jewish state during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

"They sought revenge in 1973. Although they were eventually repelled, they initially had significant successes – capturing Mount Hermon and taking control of parts of the Golan Heights," Zisser assessed.

In the 1970s, Syria became involved in the Lebanese Civil War where it sided with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) against Israel.

In 2011, the Syrian Civil War devastated the nation and reduced its once powerful military into a comparatively minor regional player, according to Zisser. Syria essentially became a Russian and Iranian vassal state.

Over the past decade, Syria has become a central battleground between Iran and Israel. The Iranian regime has invested considerable resources in establishing a new military front against Israel from Syrian territory.

Israel has responded by launching aerial attacks on Iranian-affiliated military targets across Syria and beyond.

"Generally, our confrontations with the Syrians are not direct. We attack things in Syria related to Iran and Hezbollah, not really Syria itself," Zisser said.

The Syrian regime has so far refrained from taking a direct part in the war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza, which began when Hamas invaded southern Israel's communities on the border with the Gaza Strip.

In April, an unnamed Western diplomat revealed to The Times of Israel and AFP that the Israeli government has explicitly warned President Assad "that if Syria was used against them they would destroy his regime.”

Zisser explained that Russia’s war against Ukraine has diverted Moscow’s military assets from Syria and Iran has increasingly filled the power vacuum. While the Syrian military is gradually gaining strength, it still remains a shadow of its former self.

IDF Col. (Res.) Miri Eisin, a former senior intelligence officer, explained the transformation of the Syrian Army over the past two decades.

"The Syrian Army of 2024 is the result of 24 years under Bashar al-Assad," she said, noting that while the organizational structure of the army remains intact on paper, its unique structure is a stark contrast to other regional armies. She highlighted the Soviet-Russian integration of the army, which consists of mixed units of tanks, infantry, artillery, and engineering, integrated from the battalion level to the corps.

Eisin also discussed the significant external influences that have shaped the current state of the Syrian military.

"Certain commanders in the corps opposed Bashar and defected with their units to the Free Syrian Army, while others remained loyal. The army completely split, but on paper, the corps numbers remained, though without any real significance," she explained.

She further elaborated on the involvement of Iranian and Russian forces in filling the gaps left by deserting Syrian officers, fundamentally altering the army's capabilities and composition.

Eisin said the Syrian Air Force "exists only on paper; they haven’t built a new one. They are starting to do this now, but they don’t have planes. There is a Russian airbase in the Alawite region, not far from Tartus, but it belongs to Moscow. The Syrians currently have nowhere to train pilots."