How Israeli covert activities in Syria seek to thwart its new government

 Under the cover of darkness, the helicopters from Israel began to arrive in southern Syria on Dec. 17, 2024, nine days after the ouster of former president Bashar al-Assad.

Packed alongside pallets of humanitarian aid were 500 rifles, ammunition and body armor — all discreetly airdropped by Israel to arm a Druze militia called the Military Council, according to two former Israeli officials directly involved in the effort.

The weapons shipments came in response to the sudden rise of Ahmed al-Sharaa, an Islamist militant formerly known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani and who had overthrown Assad. Israel viewed Sharaa with profound suspicion because he had led an armed group formally linked, until a decade ago, to al-Qaeda, which is vehemently opposed to Israel’s existence. Sharaa continues even now to have extremist fighters in the ranks of his supporters.

An increasingly dominant force in the Middle East, Israel has been seeking to shape developments in Syria by supporting allied Druze militiamen as part of an effort to weaken the country’s national cohesion, current and former Israeli officials said, and thus complicate Sharaa’s efforts to unify the country after its long civil war.

The covert Israeli supplies were part of a long-running effort to prop up the Druze — a religious minority that has traditionally played a role in the politics of several Middle Eastern countries, current and former Israeli officials said. And that effort continues until today, a Washington Post investigation has found.

The flow of weapons peaked in April, after Syrian Druze fighters clashed with Islamist gunmen aligned with Sharaa. And it ebbed in August after Israel pivoted to negotiating with Sharaa and doubts emerged among Israeli officials about the reliability of the Syrian Druze separatists and the feasibility of their aims.

But Israel continues to carry out airdrops of nonlethal military equipment such as body armor and medical supplies to Syrian Druze fighters, effectively undermining Sharaa’s ability to centralize power, according to Druze leaders in Syria and a former Israeli official. Israelis are also providing monthly payments between $100 to $200 to about 3,000 Druze militiamen, two Druze officials said, further demonstrating that it continues to maintain a counterweight to the central Syrian government.

The Post spoke with more than two dozen current and former Israeli and Western officials, government advisers and Druze militia commanders and political leaders in Syria, Israel and Lebanon for this report. Many of the people interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the inner workings of Israeli support for the Syrian Druze, which contained elements of covert cooperation that have never been publicly acknowledged or previously reported.

The Israel government’s overarching strategy since the fall of Assad has been ensuring that a regime with the capability to threaten Israel does not emerge on its northeastern border, and officials believe Washington is naive when it accepts Shaara’s insistence he has given up his extremist views.

Israel also says it remains committed to the Druze, who are spread across several Middle Eastern countries. Israel’s ties with the Druze, followers of a monotheistic religion that differs from both Islam and Judaism, go deep. They have played a prominent part in Israel, including by serving in senior positions in the Israeli military and government, and are therefore seen as a natural ally in Syria to many within the Israeli defense establishment.

Israel’s aid to the Syrian Druze has reflected its distrust of Sharaa and its long history of quiet intervention in a neighboring country long fragmented by civil war. Israel’s resistance to allowing Sharaa to unify the country — including through its continued support for the Druze — has been a source of tension between Jerusalem and Damascus and between Israel and the Trump administration, which has made support for Sharaa a key plank of U.S. regional policy. Many in the administration as well as in Congress are betting on Sharaa to restore stability to Syria, thus reducing tensions in the wider region, potentially clearing the way for millions of refugees to return home and helping curtail Iranian influence in the Middle East.

In a recent interview in Washington shortly before he met President Donald Trump at the White House, Sharaa told Post journalists that Israel’s support for separatist movements was driven by its “expansionist ambitions” and risked igniting “broad wars in the region, because such expansion will create a threat to Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and the Gulf States.”

But Israel and Syria have “gone a good distance on the way to reach a [de-escalation] agreement,” Sharaa added, saying that he hoped Israel would withdraw its troops from territories it seized earlier this year and “not give space to parties or actors that don't want Syria to be stable.”

Israeli officials say that although they distrust Sharaa given his earlier history as leader of an al-Qaeda affiliate, Israel has shown pragmatism by circumscribing its support for the Syrian Druze, dialing back military pressure on Syria and giving negotiations a chance in recent months.

After Trump first shook hands with Sharaa in May, Israel in August halted the flow of weapons to the Druze, Israeli and Druze officials say. Internally, Israeli officials have shelved discussions to turn the Syrian Druze into an Israeli armed proxy militia amid concerns about infighting among Syrian Druze leaders and the risk of Israel becoming entangled in Syria, according to Israeli officials and government advisers.

“We were helping when it was absolutely necessary and are committed to minorities’ security, but it is not as if we are going to have commandos take positions next to the Druze or get in the business of organizing proxies,” said an Israeli official, who described Israel’s support for the Druze as carefully calibrated. “We are trying to see how things develop there, and it’s no secret that the American administration is very much in favor of a deal.”

There has also been a growing recognition within Israel, the official added, that not all Druze have rallied around the Syrian Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, who has been leading calls for splintering from Damascus with Israeli help.

In response to a request for official Israeli comment, an Israeli government official said, “After Oct. 7 [attacks by Hamas], Israel is determined to defend our communities on our borders, including the northern border, and to prevent the entrenchment of terrorists and hostile actions against us, to protect our Druze allies, and to ensure that the State of Israel is safe from ground attack and other attacks from the border areas.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity. The Israeli military declined to comment for this article.

Some Israeli and American analysts argue that Israel’s aggressive use of military force in Syria and its clandestine efforts to promote Druze separatism were counterproductive and undercut relations at a time when Sharaa appeared eager to reach a diplomatic détente.

“There has been growing frustration in Washington that Israeli actions were setting back something most of Washington and everyone in the Middle East would actually like to see succeed: a stabilized, unified Syria,” said Dana Stroul, a former senior Pentagon official during the Biden administration who has closely studied the country. “The basic argument to Israel is, look, you actually have leaders in Damascus who are willing to say the word ‘Israel’ and talk about a potential future with normalized relations, yet you just keep bombing or looking for a surrogate to work through.”