The Gaza conflict has already entered its seventh month following Hamas’ deadly incursion across the besieged territories of Gaza without any sign of an early end.
The last months of unabated Israeli military operations in and around Gaza have rendered 35,000 Gazans dead and around 100,000 injured, with the majority of the dead being women and children. The ongoing horrendous conflict has displaced millions. Thousands are struggling for life because of an imposed hunger and spreading epidemic. The global outcry, the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) provisional ruling to stop acts of genocide and the candid United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza have failed to affect any change on the ground and the death toll is rising. Palestinian people’s agony is becoming more horrible with every passing day.
Within the week of the launch of the military operation in Gaza, the geopolitical spheres were rife with the anticipation that sooner or later, traditional foes of Israel would join the conflict on the side of Hamas. Perhaps fearing the same, the United States moved its two most sophisticated aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean and committed all military assistance to Israel in its so-called war of self-defense and the commitment still continues.
Though many were looking toward Iran for action against Israel, it was Hezbollah that became the first extraterritorial actor against the Israeli military incursion into the Gaza conflict by firing hundreds of missiles toward Israel. Moreover, recent attacks and counter-attacks from both sides seem to have become a routine affair and one can say that a war of attrition is going on between the two. Israeli forces continue to target several of Hezbollah’s ammunition depots and its training center while the latter is retaliating with bombing and suicide marchers across the territory to Israel, forcing hundreds of thousands to move to safer places. Amid this war-like situation, Hezbollah has lost around 300 members apart from civilians and in one such Israeli bombing, one of the prominent Hamas members was killed along with his colleagues in the first week of January.
One does not know how long this war of attrition will continue and if the current conflict could turn into a 2006-like war that not only altered the erstwhile geopolitics of the region but brandished a new image for Hezbollah.
Israeli military officials have repeatedly said that Hezbollah would be its next target after the elimination of Hamas because they see Hamas and Hezbollah through the same strategic prism as both do not have ideological affinity only but also harbor the same objective of containing the Israeli ascendency in the region.
Syria: Free zone for Israeli defense forces
One can understand the ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel owing to their bitter past and ideological hostility. Moreover, Hezbollah is an acolyte of Israel’s archrival in the region: Iran. But what is difficult to comprehend beyond a point is an all-out effort by Israel to drag Syria into a Gaza quagmire. Amid the Gaza conflict, Syria has almost turned into a training ground for Israeli air forces. Only between October and December, Israel targeted 33 civilian and military sites in Syria, claiming that all these were hideouts for Iran-backed militias. It is also a fact that some attacks have been launched toward Israel from the Golan Heights but all were reportedly attributed to Palestinian militias based in Syrian territories.
The Israeli forces in the guise of targeting Iran-backed militias, are also targeting the Syrian army warehouse as they did in November last year in the southern Suwayda governorate.
Today, Syria seems to have become a war zone for its closest ally (Iran) and its traditional foe (Israel) without firing a single shot on its own. Today, it is bearing the brunt for its affinity with Iran and its enmity with Israel. Though Israel has been conducting military strikes inside Syria since the Arab uprising on one pretext or another, over the last six months, the exercise has become more frequent and more intense and not without significant human and material damages.
Since Syria has become a free-for-all land in the wake of the ongoing conflict in Gaza, many members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (RGC), including a senior intelligence general, have been killed in Israeli attacks. The latest bombardment of the Iranian Consulate in the first week of April in Damascus by Israel and Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander of the RGC's Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon, along with seven others has escalated the tension to an unprecedented level and Iran has vowed revenge. The two international airports in Damascus and Aleppo have become frequent targets of Israeli airstrikes, rendering them out of service several times in the past and subsequently hampering the aid operation for millions who are still suffering from the remnants of the decadelong civil war.
No doubt this unprovoked war inside the Syrian territory is not only aimed at Iranian militias but also to impose a new geopolitical situation beyond the border of occupied Golan Heights and to stop the development of an offensive infrastructure conducive to Iranian large strategy in Syria and beyond. These mounting attacks are also indicative of the fact that Israel is not averse to the idea of opening multiple war fronts in the region. Likewise, Israel does not want any military resurrection of Syria, which has worn out in its decade-old civil war. By targeting Iranian commanders and its militia center, Israel is also trying to evolve a common cause with the Gulf leaders, and Iran is still a trump card for Israel when it comes to its friend-making drive with Gulf nations, particularly Saudi Arabia with whom Israel’s ongoing-effort for diplomatic ties suffered a major blow on account of the Gaza debacle.
Syria’s silence: Strategy or weakness?
Despite the rising human casualties, large-scale infrastructural damage and daily violation of Syrian territorial sovereignty, the persisting silence and absence of a decisive Syrian response warrant a deep analysis to unravel if it reflects the hope of strategic gains or an obvious sign of helplessness of the Syrian government.
Syrian leader Bashar Assad is a product of a system that has always stood in solidarity with the cause of Palestine and one should not forget that Syria was at the forefront of two decisive Arab-Israeli wars (1967 and 1973). The country has never shied away from extending all military and diplomatic support to the Palestinian movement. But the present silence is reflective of the changing geopolitical realities of the region, changing dynamics of Syria-Hamas ties, the transforming political trajectory of Syrian internal politics, Syria’s growing desperation to re-enter the Arab fold and to do away with its global isolation, its hope of removing its perception of a pharaoh state and not to antagonize its Arab allies who too do not seem empathetic toward the Palestinian plight.
Though Hamas and Syria had enjoyed good ties in the past, during the civil war, the ties were restrained when Hamas sided with opposition forces under the influence of Qatar and other regional powers and supported the efforts to overthrow Assad. The rift between Assad regime and Hamas reached a point where Hamas' international headquarters was forced to move from Damascus to Doha. Just two months before the Al-Aqsa operation, Assad had reportedly told Sky News that the relationship with Hamas could not return to the level of its past. The absence of Assad from this year's Al-Quds Day is also suggestive of his annoyance with Hamas and is an indication that his government would not join the Israel-Palestine war.
The relationship somewhat improved in October 2022 when a Hamas delegation traveled to Syria to meet Assad. But this rapprochement failed to prompt Syria to change its cautious approach toward Hamas or induce Assad to applaud Hamas for its Operation Al-Aqsa Flood or condemn the subsequent Israeli brutality against the civilians and destruction of Gaza.
In an official statement, Assad only called for a cease-fire without mention of Hamas. Even the statement of cease-fire came almost a month after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in the Arab-Islamic Summit in Riyadh in November. The role of Assad in Palestinian affairs has already been subdued after Syria failed to get a place in the Arab-Islamic Committee to contact world leaders for a cease-fire in Gaza formed in accordance with the resolution passed at the joint Arab League-Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Summit held in November. Moreover, given Syria’s strategic and military entanglement with Iran, it cannot afford to go all alone against Israel and the government can act at the behest of Iran alone.
Iran, on its part, does not want to see Syria exhausting its military strength for the sake of Palestine, which Iran assumes to be its own exclusive ideological and strategic domain. Syria is also avoiding a direct clash with Israel in which the latter would seize an opportunity to pounce on Iranian bases whose presence is in the interest of both. Syria needs Iran in the face of growing U.S. attacks. It is also assumed that on account of the decadelong deep military infiltration of Russia and Iran in Syria, today no decision is left with Syria. Russia does not want any escalation between Syria and Israel because it would push Israel to raise the level of military support to Ukraine.
Furthermore, Syria does not want to be exposed to a full-blown war against Israel or the U.S. because it has already lost much of its military capability in its decadelong civil war. Its military infrastructure is depleted and cannot match the Israeli and U.S. weaponry.
Syria is already fighting with opposition forces. Moreover, any war cannot remain limited to punitive strikes and would cause a lot of damage to Syria’s infrastructure, which is already devastated. Furthermore, any military entanglement with Israel is likely to weaken the political clout of Assad, which he has retrieved after a fierce battle with his opponents and with the support of Iran and Russia.
The non-responsive attitude of Syria vis-a-vis Israel can also be explained in light of its recent return to the Arab League and the welcome of Assad in many Arab capitals. In such a situation, Assad cannot craft a policy other than what is being followed by his foe-turned-friend who seems to harbor no desire to extend any support to Hamas in its war against Israel. To enforce his solidarity with its new allies, the Syrian government banned all pro-Gaza protests and a few have been arrested as well for defying the rules.
In the long term, Syria can exploit its current neutrality in the Gaza war by seeking further legitimacy and economic assistance from Western countries as there is already a buzz in some European quarters about deepening engagement with Syria and extending some economic aid as well – which of course would help Syria re-floating itself at the international level. Through his neutrality in the Gaza war, Assad wants to present his credentials before the international community and commit his trust in a post-Gaza regional or global order. In the case of Syria’s empathy toward Hamas, the country could lose the prospect of economic aid and other favors, which the country needs.
The silence on the part of Assad has benefited him in many other ways, as well. While others are following the Gaza war, the Syrian military is bombing opposition-held areas in Idlib and Aleppo without any resistance. Assad seems to have turned the Gaza disaster in his favor. It can be concluded that the existing status quo would benefit Syria and its silence is suggestive of a well-charted future strategy and reflective of the country’s military weakness.
*New Delhi-based political analyst and associated with a foreign policy think tank