A member of Syria’s security forces stands guard outside a former army base near the city of Quneitra in southern Syria, on the edge of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on September 21, 2025. Syrian government forces have pulled heavy weapons out of the country’s south, where neighbouring Israel has demanded a demilitarised zone, a military official said on September 17. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA / AFP) (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA/AFP via Getty Images)
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Israel and Syria are presently negotiating a security pact rather than a full-fledged peace treaty. At the center of talks is the future security status of southern Syria. Israel wants large swathes of that region demilitarized. Syria wants Israeli troops to withdraw from areas they’ve advanced into since the collapse of the Assad regime in December.
Israel made a detailed proposal for a security agreement in mid-September. It calls for a demilitarized zone extending southwest from the Syrian capital Damascus to the Israeli border on the Golan Heights. According to Axios, Israel based its proposal on its peace accord with Egypt, which similarly placed restrictions on the numbers and types of military forces Cairo could deploy in different zones of the Sinai Peninsula.
Aside from demanding demilitarization in southern Syria, Israel also wants guarantees that the Syrian Druze minority of that area is protected. In July, clashes between Druze militiamen and pro-government forces resulted in horrific sectarian massacres of Druze civilians in Sweida.. Israel responded with airstrikes, including against Damascus.
Since the fighting in Sweida, Israel has reportedly delivered arms and ammunition and paid the salaries of approximately 3,000 Druze fighters. In late September, Reuters reported that security pact negotiations “hit a last-minute snag” over Israel’s demand for a “humanitarian corridor” to Sweida to protect the Druze.
Any corridor linking Sweida and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights would need to go through Syria’s Daraa province, which has a Sunni Arab majority population. That would effectively sever Sweida from the rest of Syria.
“Israel’s attempts to cultivate Druze support in Syria seemed like a gamble at first, but it’s paying off,” Aron Lund, a fellow with Century International and a senior analyst at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, told me.
“In part, that seems to be because of the Syrian government’s own missteps,” he said. “It sent armed, sectarian Sunni factions into Sweida to quell Druze resistance, and that produced some really nasty results.”
“One can quibble about the ultimate reasons for the Sweida violence, but the result was the strengthening and solidification of Druze resistance to Damascus.”
Israel has welcomed this development, since it gives it “another card” to play against Damascus and also pushes Syria “one more step down the road of fragmentation along majority-minority lines,” Lund explained.
He broadly outlined how, nearly a year after Assad’s December departure, Syria remains a “weak and fractured state” where conflict simmers on. While powerful internal armed factions disagree over the country’s future direction, its sovereignty remains undermined by external forces.
In this context, it’s unclear whether Israel and Syria will ultimately sign some agreement that could de-escalate present tensions in the short to medium term and “entrench a new status quo” in the long term.
“In all honesty, I don’t think anyone is looking at an endgame here – not the Israelis, not the Syrians. Probably not even the Americans, eternal optimists though they are,” Lund said. “Everyone is trying to mould the present situation, which is still very fluid after all that happened in Syria and in the region.”
“Tomorrow is tomorrow.”
Israel and some Americans “seem to be keen on playing up the similarities” between the present Syria talks and the historic Israel-Egypt accords for political reasons. However, Lund highlighted some significant distinctions.
“Israel isn’t giving Syria anything back. There’s not a full peace deal at the end of that road,” he said.
Ryan Bohl, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at the risk intelligence company RANE, similarly noted that the Israeli demand for demilitarization is “a function” of what Israel is aiming for: “a region that is free of heavy weapons that could readily move on the Israeli border.”
“But in form, Syria cannot sign a Camp David-style accord with international observers,” Bohl told me. “Not only is the Syrian government unstable due to its ongoing transition, but there are many domestic elements inside Syria that would not accept such an accord.”
That’s partially since, unlike Sinai, southern Syria is a much more heavily populated area where many inhabitants seek security from Damascus against what otherwise “appears to be” an expansionist Israel.
“At the moment, they seem poised to an informal agreement that would limit Syrian heavy weapons in the south,” Bohl said. “But Damascus will continue to feel the imperative to secure this region throughout its transition and will be unable to sign anything that firms this as a permanent arrangement.”
“In addition, Turkey, Syria’s patron, also will not want to see Syria give such a wide expanse of territory for a DMZ, out of concern it might become a source of instability for Damascus.”
After it withdrew troops and settlers from Sinai in 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, confident it could mount a large-scale offensive to its north since Egypt and its large army would no longer pose a threat to its south.
The official goal of the subsequent Operation Peace for Galilee was the removal of the Palestine Liberation Organization from southern Lebanon’s border regions with Israel. While the Israeli army went on to besiege Beirut, leading to Yasser Arafat and the rest of the PLO leadership relocating to Tunisia, Israel ultimately found itself bogged down in Lebanon.
An even deadlier insurgency to Israel’s occupation emerged in the form of the Shiite Hezbollah militia backed by Iran. In 1985, Israel withdrew its forces to Lebanon’s southern border regions, consolidating its presence in the so-called security zone, which covered approximately 10 percent of Lebanon’s territory, until withdrawing from there in May 2000.
During the 18 years it had troops in that zone, Israel used allied Lebanese militias, most notably the South Lebanon Army, which became infamous among Lebanese, as proxies. Israel’s present-day arming of allied Druze fighters seemingly suggests it may have something similar in mind for southern Syria, especially if ongoing efforts to establish a security pact with Damascus ultimately fail.
Here again, there are some critical distinctions.
“Unlike the SLA, the Druze have no interest in being an Israeli proxy, and are a stronger, more capable force than the SLA was,” Bohl said. “That will mean they will be autonomous of Israeli goals, including Israel’s goal of keeping the south free of Syrian government forces.”
“The Druze will want to leverage Israeli aid to secure political and ethnic rights in the Syrian transition, but this leveraging could be at times violent or inspire backlash from other Syrian factions,” Bohl added.“At the same time, the Druze will not want to see southern Syria turned into a zone where the IDF can operate freely, not only for personal security reasons but for national self-determination ones.”
“These gaps will prevent the Druze from becoming a clean proxy like the SLA, but will also ensure the Druze forces will be more capable of operating without robust Israeli intervention as well.”
A more likely scenario the RANE analyst anticipates is what he calls “an informal buffer zone” enforced by Israel’s powerful air force and intermittent ground raids. That buffer zone would resemble more of a sphere of influence than a demilitarized zone.
“I think Damascus will on occasion try to test how much Israel is enforcing this buffer zone, especially if it comes under pressure from hardline factions in the transitional process, resulting in intermittent clashes and/or escalated tension,” Bohl said.
“Meanwhile, Damascus will look to Turkey to try to help it offset Israeli military pressure.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned on October 1 that Turkey would not allow a fragmentation of Syria. And while he directed that particular warning at the Kurdish-led forces in the northeast, his government staunchly supports a centralized Syria under incumbent President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“As the years go along, that military cooperation could eventually result in Turkey being part of the final status of Syria’s south, either by acting as a block on Israeli pressure, or by negotiating a final settlement there,” Bohl said.