ISRAEL SYRIA CONFLICT

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Context

• Israel shelled parts of Syria, claiming it was in response to rockets being fired at Golan Heights from the neighbouring country.

Details

• al-Quds Brigade — a Damascus-based Palestinian militant group loyal to the Syrian regime — claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks, saying they were launched in retaliation for the recent raids at the al-Aqsa mosque by the Israeli police.

Why is the conflict boiling over recently?

• With an ultra-nationalist government coming to power in Israel, the region has been simmering for months.
• Israeli police raided Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, considered the third holiest site in Islam.
• This served as the immediate trigger for a wave of rocket attacks, including from Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and Syria.
• In Syria, Israel’s actions come out of the fear that arch-rival Iran is using the long-running war in the country to station its fighters and weapons close to Israel’s borders.
• Israel is also locked in a conflict with the Hezbollah, which holds sway in another neighbour, Lebanon.

Background of Israel-Syria ties

• While Israel and Syria have had a bilateral conflict, things worsened after the launch of the Syria war in 2011, with multiple countries and competing interests entering the fray.
• Iran, which denies Israel’s right to exist, emerged as a major player, supporting Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
  • Thus, for more than 10 years, Iran’s weapons, money, and fighters have poured into Syria, its Eastern neighbour.
• Before this, Israel and Syria fought the Six-Day War in 1967, in which Israel seized Golan Heights, which it has occupied since then.
  • The fertile plateau of Golan Heights overlooks both Israel and Syria, offering a commanding military vantage.
  • Syrian forces made an abortive bid to recapture Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
  • The 1974 ceasefire agreement, however, left most of the area in Israeli hands.
  • In 1981, Israel passed the Golan Heights Law, which extended Israel’s “laws, jurisdiction and administration” to the area, in effect annexing it.
  • In 2000, Israel and Syria made a failed attempt at negotiating a settlement.
• In recent years, Israel has been accused of carrying out targeted strikes in Syria, though it doesn’t acknowledge them.

About Syrian Civil War

Present Situation

• Twelve years into Syria’s devastating civil war, the conflict appears to have settled into a frozen state.
• Although roughly 30% of the country is controlled by opposition forces, heavy fighting has largely ceased and there is a growing regional trending toward normalizing relations with the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
• The Syrian population has been brutalized, with nearly a half a million killed, 12 million fleeing their homes to find safety elsewhere, and widespread poverty and hunger.
• Meanwhile, efforts to broker a political settlement have gone nowhere, leaving the Assad regime firmly in power.

Why are countries in the region deciding to normalize relations with the Assad regime in spite of its dismal human rights record?

• Regional leaders likely calculate that Assad will remain in power for the foreseeable future and are seeking to integrate Syria into the region on their terms.
• For some countries, normalization is viewed as a counterweight to deepening Iranian influence in Syria, while others are looking to build back economic ties as their countries’ economies suffer significant downturns.

Parties involved

• The government's key supporters have been Russia and Iran, while Turkey, Western powers and several Gulf Arab states have backed the opposition to varying degrees during the conflict.

Russia:

• Russia which had military bases in Syria before the war - launched an air campaign in support of Mr Assad in 2015 that has been crucial in turning the tide of the war in the government's favour.
• The Russian military says its strikes only target "terrorists" but activists say they regularly kill mainstream rebels and civilians.

Iran:

• Iran is believed to have deployed hundreds of troops and spent billions of dollars to help Mr Assad.
• Thousands of Shia Muslim militiamen armed, trained and financed by Iran - mostly from Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, but also Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen - have also fought alongside the Syrian army.

West:

• The US, UK and France initially provided support for what they considered "moderate" rebel groups. But they have prioritised non-lethal assistance since jihadists became the dominant force in the armed opposition.
• A US-led global coalition has also carried out air strikes and deployed special forces in Syria since 2014 to help an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) capture territory once held by IS militants in the north-east and stop the jihadist group rebuilding.

Turkey:

• Turkey is a major supporter of the opposition, but its focus has been on using rebel factions to contain the Kurdish YPG militia that dominates the SDF, accusing it of being an extension of a banned Kurdish rebel group in Turkey.
• Turkish troops and allied rebels have seized stretches of territory along Syria's northern border and intervened to stop an all-out assault by government forces on the last opposition stronghold of Idlib.

Other Middle Eastern Powers:

• Saudi Arabia, which is keen to counter Iranian influence, armed and financed the rebels at the start of the war, as did the kingdom's Gulf rival, Qatar.
• Israel, meanwhile, has been so concerned by what it calls Iran's "military entrenchment" in Syria and shipments of Iranian weapons to Hezbollah and other Shia militias that it has conducted air strikes with increasing frequency in an attempt to thwart them.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-global/what-is-the-conflict-between-israel-and-syria-8549020/