U.N. returns to Israel-Syria border
Gone for 4 years, troops back to patrol with Russian forces
BEIRUT — U.N. peacekeepers returned Thursday for the first time in years to the frontier between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, conducting joint patrols with Russian military police in a reflection of Moscow’s deepening role in mediating between the decadesold foes in the volatile region.
Israel has increasingly sought Russia’s involvement in securing its frontier with Syria and in scaling back Iran’s influence in the area. Moscow, Damascus’ weightiest ally, has in turn sought coordination with Israel as a bridge with Washington in dealing with Syria’s complex war.
Israel considers Iran’s growing influence in Syria — it has advisers and allied militias fighting alongside Syrian troops — as an existential threat and had looked for guarantees from Moscow to push pro-Iran fighters away from its frontiers.
Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy of the Russian military said conditions have been created for the resumption of U.N. peacekeeping patrols along the area separating Syria and Israel. The U.N. peacekeeping forces first deployed along the frontier in 1974 after an agreement to separate Syrian and Israeli forces after Israel occupied the Golan Heights in the 1967 war.
Rudskoy said Russian military police have accompanied the peacekeepers on patrols, adding that eight Russian-manned observation points opposite the U.N. points will be set up “to rule out possible provocations.”
When the situation stabilizes, Rudskoy said, the Russian-manned posts would be handed over to Syrian government forces.
Israel acknowledged a return to normalcy along the frontier.
Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the situation on the Syrian side of the boundary had returned to its pre-2011 state after Syrian government forces, supported by Russia’s military, regained control of the region from armed opposition that controlled it since 2014.
Lieberman said Israel will have “no cause to intervene or operate in Syrian territory” if Damascus respects the 1974 disengagement agreement between the two sides — and as long as Syria doesn’t become a staging ground for Iranian forces to attack Israel or transfer arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The area, peaceful for decades since the agreement, became a fighting ground at the height of the Syrian civil war, finally pushing the U.N. peacekeeping force out in 2014 after al-Qaida militants kidnapped 45 U.N. peacekeepers. They were released two weeks later.
The area had become particularly volatile in recent weeks during a Syrian government offensive to retake territories controlled by the opposition adjacent to the frontier. Israel has also increased its strikes against suspected Iranian targets inside Syria.
Reflecting the tension along the frontier, Israel’s military said Thursday that its aircraft fired on “several armed terror operatives in the southern Syrian Golan Heights” overnight and that troops were on high alert.
With assault rifles and explosive belts, the operatives approached a security fence on Israel’s side of the border overnight, an Israeli army spokesman said. An initial assessment by Israel’s military identified the gunmen as Islamic State militants, in what would mark a rare attempt by the Islamist militants to infiltrate Israel.
The seven fighters were wearing military fatigues and moved in formation, said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman. Their potential target was unclear, he said, but there are “Israeli communities within hundreds of meters of the fence.”
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Brig. Gen. Nitzan Nuriel, former head of the Counterterror Bureau at Israel’s prime minister’s office, said Israel should be on alert in the area because Syrian government troops “from now and a year from now, they will not be able to control those who are trying to attack the state of Israel from that border.”
He said Israel will not accept any changes to the 1974 deal or the presence of any Syrian troops or allied militias inside the disengagement zone.
In Amman, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said the Syrian government has not officially requested the opening of the Syria-Jordan border after government forces recaptured its side of a crossing from rebels last month.
Jordan has been in discussions with Russian authorities, Safadi said, and will respond to Syria’s request “positively” in a way that supports Jordanian and Syrian interests.