Syria-Iraq Combo and Lone Lebanon Fighting Israel

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

Note that Syria is very close to Israel, touching land to land in the northern end of Israel and Iraq borders both Syria and Iran.   Damascus and Bagdad have close connections. 

Israel had been attacked even before it's birth in 1947-1948 War of Independence with Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria—attacked Israel. The conflict ended with Israel controlling all of the Negev up to the former Egypt-Palestine frontier, except for the Gaza Strip., then in 1956, 1967 The Six-Day War, by all its neighbors , a War between Israel and the Arab countries of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. Palestinian guerrilla attacks on Israel from bases in Syria led to increased hostility between the two countries. , 1973 The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was fought from 6 to 25 October 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria., The Agreement on Disengagement between Israel and Syria, which was signed on May 31, 1974, provided for the continuation of the cease-fire already in effect and for the separation of opposing parties by a UN Peacekeeping Force. The Agreement specifically states that “H. This agreement is not a peace agreement. It is a step toward a just and durable peace on the basis of Security Council Resolution 338 dated October 22, 1973.”   

 

The 1982  War with Lebanon : In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon in order to expel the Palestine Liberation Organization from its bases there. Israel withdrew from Lebanon by 1985..  Assad entered the military academy and in 1998 took charge of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon begun by his father. On 17 July 2000, Assad became president, succeeding his father, who had died on 10 June 2000.

• 2006 Lebanon War: In 2006 Hezbollah launched an operation against Israel and, over the ensuing month, fought Israeli forces to a standstill.

The Syrian civil war is an ongoing conflict in Syria that began with the Syrian Revolution in March 2011 when popular discontent with the Ba'athist regime ruled by Bashar al-Assad triggered large-scale protests and pro-democracy rallies across Syria, as part of the wider Arab Spring protests in the region.

 On December 4, 2019, and unnamed plane fired missiles at an Iranian arms warehouse  near that Syrian-Iraq border.  It was firing missiles at targets located at the al-Hamdan airport, reported i24.  What's happening is that Iranian backed militias rehabilitated an airfield in Deir Ezzor. 

  The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Militia will use it as a helicopter landing pad in their military zone .  Iranian and Syrian engineers have visited the site.  The Afghan Fatemiyoun militia will be guarding the airport later but they do fear more USA military strikes on it.  

Deir ez-Zor  is the largest city in eastern Syria and the seventh largest in the country. Located on the banks of the Euphrates River 450 km (280 mi) to the northeast of the capital Damascus, Deir ez-Zor is the capital of the Deir ez-Zor Governorate. In the 2018 census, it had a population of 271,800.

During the third millennium BC, the Amorites (people of Canaan before the Israelite conquest) now of Syria settled the area and established the kingdom of Yamhad, one of whose urban centers was the city of Deir Ez-Zor (alongside Mayadeen, Qars, and Tarka and its capital of Aleppo, Syria). The city didn't suffer during the succession of major empires (such as the Akkadian Empire, Old Assyrian Empire, Babylonian Empire, Hittite Empire, Middle Assyrian Empire and Neo-Assyrian Empire) when some military campaigns by the emperors were destroying entire urban centers for fear of future rebellion, as Deir al-Zour was too small to be considered a threat, and the region was incorporated into Assyria during the Iron Age.  Canaan, name for Syria in 15th century BCE,  was land Jews later referred to as Eretz Yisrael.  

Ibrahim Pasha, the ruler of Syria (1831–1840)

The first Ottoman era extended from the date the Ottomans entered Syria in 1517 until 1864, where the Ottomans found Deir Ez-Zor a small town on the upper Euphrates and chose it as a center for their employees and settled in some of tribal sheikhs to protect the trade route between Aleppo, Syria and Baghdad, Iraq and The tribe members began to visit it to communicate with the men of power and buy their needs.  

• Israel-Hamas War: In October 2023  Hamas led an attack against Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking more than 240 others hostage. Israel declared war the next day and carried out air strikes in the Gaza Strip followed by a ground invasion. The war leveled much of the Gaza Strip and resulted in a humanitarian crisis there. A negotiated ceasefire was announced in January 2025.  Hamas is made up of terrorists;   HAMAS–the acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya (Islamic Resistance Movement)—is the largest and most capable militant group in the Palestinian territories and one of the territories' two major political parties.

  

• Palestinians are made up of many neighboring lands, mainly Syria and all others who came into Eretz Yisrael in the 1880s following Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe who were building cities.  (Read Joan Peters book, From Time Immemorial.)

December 3, 2024:  Times of Israel carried info that Shiite militia groups in Iraq have decided to stop attacking Israel, a Lebanese report claimed Monday, in what would mark the latest retreat by a regional Iranian proxy that had attempted to pile pressure on Jerusalem.  Iraq-based militias have launched dozens of attack drones at Israel since war broke out in Gaza following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault, alongside other members of Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and pro-Iran groups in Syria.

• On 8 December 2024, the Assad regime collapsed during a major offensive by opposition forces. The offensive was spearheaded by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and supported mainly by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army as part of the ongoing Syrian civil war that began with the Syrian revolution in 2011.

On 27 November 2024, a ceasefire agreement was signed by Israel, Lebanon, and five mediating countries, including the United States. Hezbollah attacked Israel on 8 October 2023, leading to a year of cross-border fighting, and on 1 October 2024, Israel invaded Lebanon.

December 19, 2024:  i24 noted that the Western powers will attack Iraq if Iran backs their militia  and are not disarmed leaving only Houthis in Iran's "Axis of Resistance."

                        

       Israeli soldiers patrolling the ceasefire line in the Golan Heights, December 2024                            

                                         Assad and Putin 

50 years later, following the fall of the Assad regime, Israel said it "considered the agreement void until order is restored in Syria", leading to the 2024 Israeli invasion of Syria.  On 8 December 2024, Israel invaded the buffer zone in southwestern Syria adjacent to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and carried out an aerial campaign targeting the Syrian Army's military capabilities. 

March 28, 2025:  Israel said it hit Hezbollah drone storage in Beirut suburb;  Airstrike followed three smaller warning shots;  Carried out after another rocket salvo into Israel;  Panicky south Beirut residents flee on foot amid gridlock;  November ceasefire deal fraying amid series of incidents.  

Resource:

the New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorites#:~:text=The%20most%20common%20view%20is,the%20ancient%20Semitic%2Dspeaking%20peoples.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_ez-Zor

https://www.i24news.tv/en/tags/israel-iraq

https://www.timesofisrael.com/iraqi-militias-reportedly-agree-to-end-drone-attacks-on-israel/

https://www.britannica.com/summary/Arab-Israeli-wars