The scenario beyond the Lebanese border that keeps Hizballah awake

Almost under the radar, Syrian President Ahmed al-Shara’s men recently began dismantling mines that they themselves had laid not long before. The activity is concentrated in key points on the Lebanon-Syria border, in the Wadi Khaled area and the East Lebanon Valley. It is true that until now the voices of the heads of government in Damascus have been muted, but on the face of it the only reason for such a move, which keeps Hizbullah officials awake, is the preparation of the area for a possible entry of Syrian forces into Lebanese territory.

For the Lebanese terrorist organization, this is the horror scenario incarnate: a terrible pincer movement – Israel from the south and Syria from the east – even if it is not coordinated at all. People who follow what is happening in Lebanon claim that the panic in Hezbollah is already evident on the ground. The organization hastened to build up its forces in the Lebanon Valley out of real fear of opening a secondary front that would harass and exhaust it from behind.

To understand how we got to the almost imaginary reality where Syria is preparing to attack Hezbollah, you need to look at the tectonic plates that are currently moving in the Middle East. “With all the question marks and skepticism, we are sure of one thing: the new Syria no longer belongs to the Shiite axis, as was the case during the Assad era,” explains Dr. Carmit Valancy, head of the Syria program at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).

“During the Assad era, Syria actually served as a central link in the axis, mainly as a territorial logistics center for the transfers of IDF,” Valancy sheds light on the transformation. “This whole story disappeared with the fall of Assad, and Iran did evacuate most of its assets, most of its operatives and couriers from Syria.”

This historic disengagement from Tehran now translates directly into a rigid policy on the ground, which explains the tensions on the border. “A-Sharia today defines the Iranians as its main enemy,” Valensi emphasizes. The military moves on the Lebanese border are not accidental, they are part of the same strategy of the new Syria, which, according to Valensi, “combats Hezbollah’s attempts to use Syria for IDF transfers.” This parallels the diplomatic effort of Al-Shara to signal to the countries of the region about his desire to reintegrate into the pragmatic Sunni camp.

But to understand the depth of the Syrian motivation, you have to go back – to the long and brutal years of the civil war. For the Syrians, Hezbollah is not just an ideological opponent. In 2012 he arrived in Syria and served as a central ground force for Assad when his regime began to collapse. For the Syrians, the Shia terrorist organization is an active partner in the massacre. “The suffering that Hezbollah has caused the Syrian people is a thousand times more than what they have ever done to Israel,” says Elizabeth Zurkov, a research fellow at the Forum for Regional Thinking. “The number of people they killed there, among the Syrians, is thousands of times greater than the number of Israelis they have ever killed.”

In recent years, Tsurkov’s name has become familiar to every Israeli – but not because of her research. The researcher, who in the Israeli oriental community has been considered for years as one of the most prominent experts on what is happening in Syria, was actually kidnapped in Iraq in March 2023, where she was sent as part of her academic obligations. She was held captive by the pro-Iranian militia “Katayeb Hezbollah” for about two and a half years, until her release in September 2025.

“They reached everywhere in Syria,” Zurkov explains. “In the Kosair area, in Homs, the outskirts of Damascus, the outskirts of Aleppo, in the east of the city of Aleppo, and in the south of the Idlib district.” The tactics, she said, were brutal in the extreme: laying siege to towns and neighborhoods that were under rebel control, starving people to death and ethnically cleansing conquered areas. In the case of Kosair, on the border with Lebanon, things went so far as to bring Shia families from Lebanon and resettle them in the lands from which the Sunnis were expelled.

But motivation separately and ability separately. Because the army Sha-Shara is trying to build came from a starting point of almost zero. In December 2024, with the fall of Assad, Israel systematically bombed most of the collapsing regime’s military capabilities. Since then, the pace at which Israel is rebuilding its military power is surprisingly fast.

“Today we are talking about an army of between 80,000 and 100,000 soldiers,” says Valancy. “There is significant progress here, because at the beginning of December last year we were talking about 40-50 thousand. Today he is even going through the process of sorting out officers from the Assad era who can integrate into the new army.”

But within this emerging army is hidden a detail that greatly disturbed the Americans: a significant part of the fighters are not Syrian at all. “We are talking about between 7,000 and 12,000 foreign fighters,” Valensi elaborates. “They arrived during the years of the civil war and worked together with Jabhat al-Nusra – back when they were al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria. Turkmens, Uighurs from China, really foreigners who didn’t even know Arabic in the first years. Some of them have been in Syria continuously for at least 7 or 8 years and today they already have Syrian families.”

Trump set a clear condition for the evil: American recognition will come only if he removes the foreign fighters. A-Shara refused – and his explanation reveals a lot about the nature of the new government in Damascus. “If he tries to eradicate and exclude the foreign forces – they will take revenge on him like they did in Iraq,” explains Valancy. “That’s why he actually thinks that the right strategy is to integrate them within the military institutions. I hear this from a few sources – that they are forces very loyal to the government, unlike other armed groups.”

For him, as Israelis, who are used to seeing hostility in every corner of the Middle East, al-Sharia and Nasrallah are seemingly allies – neither of them is exactly endowed with a great deal of love for Israel. That is why it is difficult to grasp how bitter enemies Hezbollah and the Syrian people have become over the years. To what extent is this scenario, that Syria in some kind of macabre situation, enters Lebanon and pretends to help Israel at all possible?

“It is not possible,” states Tsurkov decisively. “The Syrian army is a very, very weak army, which is not well organized. Despite all kinds of parades and displays they make, they face a host of problems at home. This weak army has to deal with an armed rebellion by Alevis in their areas and with the Sweida area, which is under the control of Druze militias who carry out attacks on regime forces from time to time, and they have ISIS which is still active throughout the country and is a significant risk. They are not looking for new problems.”

The new regime of Syria, Maabhanat Zurkov, is interested in normal relations with the neighboring countries: Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and also with Israel. “People there were also exhausted during 14 years of war,” she says. “No one is looking for new adventures. Besides the fact that this is the leadership of a group that worked for many years to come to power in Damascus – they will not do things that will undermine this achievement.”

Hizbullah itself, Zurkov points out, must not be described as a completely broken body. “It is still an organization whose forces in East Lebanon in particular – that is, in the Lebanon Valley region – were not significantly harmed, unlike many forces that were in South Lebanon.

Still, Tsurkov also leaves one opening, however narrow, for the possibility of a confrontation on the Lebanon-Syria border. “Only in case Hezbollah attacks Syria,” she says. “They have already launched several shells or rockets towards Syria since the Assad regime fell, and there were clashes in the Baalbak area. In the end the matter was calmed down by a telephone conversation between A-Shara and the Lebanese president.”

Valency, for her part, points to evidence in the field that is hard to ignore – and precisely to what was not said. “There were no Syrian statements that support this, but there were Syrian statements that explain and justify, saying: ‘We have no intention of invading Lebanese territory, you have nothing to worry about,'” she says. “A-Shara called Lebanese President Aoun, and then once again had a tripartite conversation with Macron as well. We are sure that this conversation would not have taken place in Syria, if they had not understood in Lebanon and in the region that there are more concrete intentions of the Syrians to enter Lebanon.”

Last week, the IDF attacked infrastructure of the Syrian army in southern Syria. The background: the internal security forces of al-Shara carried out a series of attacks against the people of al-Savida – including kidnappings, firing rockets and drones. 7 people were killed, 4 were injured and 19 were kidnapped. Israel, which fears that the local conflict could degenerate into a large-scale pogrom against the Druze, decided to respond with what appeared to be a warning strike – to stop the Syrian regime before things fell apart.

That is, Israel is attacking the same army that may be about to give it an important gift and harass Hezbollah from another front. And the question is whether Israel even wants this to happen. “We shouldn’t put our money in the capabilities of the Syrian army,” Valensi says. “It has a meaning, perhaps more symbolic than operative, because their capabilities are limited. Because of the distrust that prevails in Israel towards Al-Sharia, they would prefer to see him out of the game, because it might indicate offensive intentions, maybe even signal future intentions against Israel. I estimate that Israel would not like this move.”

But beneath the surface, a much more complex picture emerges than just a relationship of mutual suspicion. Valancy describes a reality in which Israel and Syria are already cooperating – even if neither side is in a hurry to admit it publicly. “Syria has a passive but significant role: it serves as a strategic corridor for the activities of the Israeli Air Force, and now the American Air Force as well, and opens up the air skies completely,” she says. “Here there really is a common interest between us and them. My assessment is that there is closer coordination between the parties and a clearer approval on the part of A-Shara – this is mainly due to the close relations that exist between the United States and Syria.”

A-Shara, Valensi explains, understands that the geopolitical situation brings him an opportunity that is hard to miss. “He proposes to establish a joint naval force and use Syria as an energy corridor, against the background of the threats to the shipping lanes that Iran poses,” Valensi says. “A-Shara understands that there is an opportunity here to highlight the assets, the positive role that Syria can play in the region, and the fact that it naturally belongs to the pragmatic Sunni camp.”