Israel and Syria’s Shared Fight Against Hezbollah

Excerpt

“We stand alongside Lebanon in disarming Hezbollah,” Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa declared last month. No other Arab head of state has called for taking away Hezbollah’s weapons. Until Sharaa overthrew Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, Syria was helping to arm Hezbollah. Now, Syria finds itself unexpectedly sharing an adversary with Israel.

On April 19, Syria’s Interior Ministry announced that it had thwarted a sabotage plot in Quneitra province orchestrated by a cell linked to Hezbollah. According to Syrian authorities, the operatives had disguised a civilian transport vehicle to conceal rocket-launching equipment for a surprise attack. The rockets reportedly bore the slogan “Victory for our brothers in Lebanon and Palestine.” Days earlier, Syrian authorities announced that they had also disrupted a plot targeting a religious figure in Damascus, arresting suspects who the Interior Ministry said were linked to Hezbollah. The reported target, Rabbi Michael Khoury, is one of numerous Jewish communal leaders to have visited Syria following the fall of Assad and in December had been part of a delegation of Syrian American Jews attending the reopening of the Elfrange Synagogue in the Syrian capital.

Ahmad Sharawi is a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, focusing on Middle East affairs and the Levant.