Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Israel Mulls Buffer Zone on Border With Syria

An Israeli general has raised the possibility of creating a buffer zone in Syria, in cooperation with local forces wary of jihadist fighters, should President Bashar al-Assad be toppled.

Major-General Yair Golan said “many hundreds” of radical Islamists were fighting in Syria’s two-year-old civil war and could “take root” in Israel’s northern neighbour should Assad fall.

He said the Israeli military was working on the assumption that these fighters would ultimately launch attacks against Israel, which captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.

“One measure we certainly cannot rule out is to create a security zone on the other side of the border,” Golan, head of the military’s northern command, said in an interview published on Monday in the Yisrael Hayom daily.

Golan, who oversees Israeli forces on the Syrian and Lebanese frontiers, did not say whether he envisages the deployment of Israeli troops in such a buffer area.

Syrians “with a common interest in cooperating with us” against radical Islamist fighters would be Israel’s natural allies in any such security zone, Golan said.

“If an opportunity presents itself – and it hasn’t as yet – we should not hesitate,” he said. “Everything should be done wisely and secretly, with a true examination of where the interests of the other side lie.”

Golan pointed to the example of the “security zone” Israeli forces maintained for 15 years in southern Lebanon with the stated aim of keeping Hezbollah guerrillas and rockets away from Israel’s border.

“The bottom line: (the buffer zone in Lebanon) was one of the most worthy security investments ever made by the State of Israel,” he said about an area where Israeli troops were frequently under attack and which they left in 2000.

In recent months, a number of rockets fired during fighting between Syrian forces and rebels have fallen inside the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The strategic plateau is monitored by U.N. observers and had been quiet for decades.

Israel fired into Syria on Sunday, saying it destroyed a machinegun post that had shot at Israeli soldiers in the Golan Heights.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.