Israel fears Iran may exploit Syria ‘safe zones’

ISRAEL IS concerned that the Russian safe-zone plan for Syria could lead to the creation of Hezbollah and Iranian strongholds near its border.

The issue came up in a phone conversation last week between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Vladimir Putin.

The “de-escalation areas” were agreed on by Russia, Iran and Turkey last month, although they have yet to be defined and enforced.

In their phone call on Wednesday, Mr Netanyahu urged the Russian president not to allow Iranian forces or their proxy, Hezbollah, to operate in any safe zones close to Israel’s border.

Under the terms of the agreement, the zones will not be bombed from the air and the local residents will have access to humanitarian aid.

However, the deal does not preclude ground operations by the Assad regime or its Iranian and Russian patrons.

Both Israel and Jordan have expressed an interest in having safe zones created near their borders in the hope that they would relieve pressure on the refugees there and push the fighting further away, but Jerusalem has made it clear it would not allow Hezbollah or Iran to gain strongholds in the Golan.

Since the start of the Russian military deployment to Syria in late 2015, there has been a “deconfliction” mechanism to ensure that there are no military clashes between Israel and Russia.

During this time, air strikes on Hezbollah and Iranian weapons dumps and convoys, attributed to Israel, have been carried out regularly. However, Israeli security officials are concerned that Russia has become less willing to allow Israel to operate over Syrian territory.