Assad’s Plan To Keep Syria Out of the War in Gaza Amid Israel’s conflict with Hamas and its allies, Damascus has taken a series of steady steps to mend ties with its former enemies Hassan Hassan is Founder and Editor in Chief of New Lines magazineSeptember 27, 2024 September last year, an event on the Syrian border signaled the possibility of Iranian-backed forces opening a new front against Israel in Syria — yet, in a surprising turn, that front has remained quiet for the past year during the war in Gaza. Israeli tanks responded to Syrian troop deployments by striking two military structures inside Syria. Israeli authorities claimed the structures had been built in a demilitarized border zone that was established by a 1974 agreement between the two countries. This attack went largely unnoticed at the time, but in hindsight it is intriguing for two main reasons. First, Israel did not respond in the same way to similar military reinforcements in 2011, when the Syrian military deployed troops, airplanes and tanks close to the Israeli border. At a 1974 summit in Geneva, the two countries agreed on a demilitarized “area of separation” along the border, and a further “area of limitation” within 25 kilometers in either direction, restricting military strength in the zone to small, lightly armed forces. The 2011 Syrian deployment, intended to quell a nascent uprising, encompassed l