Israeli Army Took Over Syrian Town Located 20 Kilometers Away From Damascus (Video)

File image.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has entered the Syrian town of Rakhlah, located just 20 kilometers to the west of the capital of Damascus.

The deployment was reported on August 22 by Syrian activists, who also shared footage showing a convoy of Israeli Humvee vehicles and trucks moving near Rakhlah. By the next day, the same activists claimed that the town was under the complete control of the IDF.

Besides its close proximity to Damascus, Rakhlah overlooks the main highway linking the Syrian capital with Beirut, the capital of neighboring Lebanon. The town also overlooks much of Lebanon’s Beqaa Governorate, a stronghold of Hezbollah.

This is not the first time the IDF has entered Rakhlah. Last month, Israeli special forces landed from helicopters near the town and conducted a raid. However, the new deployment appears to be a part of a more elaborate operation meant to establish a lasting presence in the town.

The vast majority of Rakhlah’s population are Druze. An Israeli intervention stopped an attack by the forces of the Syrian Islamist-led Interim Government and allied tribes on Druze in the governorate of al-Suwayda, located to southeast of Damascus, last month.

Following the fall of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last December, took over the buffer zone adjacent to the Golan Heights in the southern governorate of al-Qunitra. It also demanded the complete demilitarization of southern Syria, and vowed to protect Druze there, citing its historic relations with its own Druze community.

Considering this context, the IDF is not expected to face any resistance from people in Rakhlah if it is indeed planning to establish a lasting presence there.

The IDF move came just days after Syria confirmed that its foreign minister held a rare meeting with an Israeli delegation in the French capital, Paris.

The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said that Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani met with Israeli officials on August 19 to discuss “de-escalation and non-interference in Syria’s internal affairs, reaching understandings that support stability in the region, monitoring the ceasefire in al-Suwayda governorate, and reactivating the 1974 agreement.”

The meeting was seen as a major concession from the side from Syria’s Islamist rulers. Still, Israel didn’t acknowledge it at all.

Reports that surfaced later suggested that the two countries were planning to sign a security agreement in the United States coming September. However, these reports were quickly dismissed by the Syrian Foreign Ministry. SANA also denied other reports alleging that the country approved a proposal to open an aid corridor from Israel to Druze in al-Suwayda, who have been under siege since the battle in July.

These developments led to speculation that the meeting in Paris, which was arranged by the U.S., was not as successful as Syria attempted to portray it.

All in all, Syria appears to be making one concession after another to Israel and getting nothing in return. In fact, if anything, the IDF appears to be operating more freely in southern Syria than before. At this point it is not even hard to imagine the IDF patrolling the outskirts of Damascus within a year or so.

The allies of the new Syrian government are either incapable of stopping the IDF, like Turkey, or unwilling to put any pressure on Israel, as with the U.S.

Reports that came out following the visit of a senior Syrian delegation, including Foreign Minister, to the Russian capital, Moscow, last month, said that the government was open to the idea of redeploying Russian forces to the south of the country to restrict the movements of the IDF. However, Russia will not likely agree without fully securing its interests in the country and it is doubtful the new rulers can even do this.

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