Israel and Syria hold direct talks to curb spiralling tensions

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Syria and Israel have held several rounds of direct talks in recent weeks aiming to quell spiralling tensions between the neighbouring countries, said three people briefed on the situation.

The talks were the first known direct contact between the new leadership in Damascus and their Israeli counterparts amid a spate of Israeli air strikes on Syrian soil, said the people. The two countries have not historically had diplomatic relations.

“This is only the beginning, but the talks are focused largely on preventing the outbreak of hostilities and encouraging the Israelis to pull back from the Syrian border areas they have encroached on,” said one of the people.

The two have engaged in indirect talks since Islamist rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December, said four western and Arab diplomats and one Syrian government official.

The United Arab Emirates served as a conduit for those talks, said the diplomats and official.

The direct dialogue, first reported by Reuters, comes as President Donald Trump has eased sanctions on Syria and met the Syrian president in Riyadh, urging Sharaa last week to normalise ties with Israel and contain Palestinian militants.

Several militants affiliated with Sharaa’s former rebel group and with Palestinian Islamic Jihad have since been detained in Syria, in what was seen as a gesture of goodwill.

Following their meeting, Trump suggested Sharaa was willing to normalise ties with Israel eventually. Sharaa did not comment on that, but has instead emphasised a return to the terms of a 1974 ceasefire agreement between Syria and Israel that established a UN-monitored buffer zone.

The Syrian delegation was led by Ahmed al-Dalati, governor of the southern province of Quneitra, which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and has seen the presence of Israeli forces since the spring. He was part of the delegation that travelled to the UAE to broker initial talks earlier this year.

Dalati was a senior official in the rebel alliance that helped topple Assad in December and is trusted by both Sharaa and his foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani. His mandate was expanded earlier this week to include Sweida, a restive southern province home to Syria’s Druze minority.

At least one round of talks was held in Quneitra, said one of the people.

The new Syrian leadership has sought to engage the west and regional powers, saying they are focused not on new conflict but rebuilding and unifying the country after more than 13 years of civil war.

Sharaa’s young administration has neither threatened nor taken provocative action against Israel, and his officials have met Syrian Jewish community leaders.

Following Assad’s ousting, Israel embarked on an aggressive military campaign in Syria. It has seized a five-decade old buffer zone “indefinitely”, bombed what it says are military targets and encroached on towns and villages in Quneitra province, far beyond the territory Israel has occupied since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Israeli leaders have decried Syria’s new leaders as a “terrorist regime of radical Islam” and threatened a broader offensive if the government harms the Druze.

Earlier this month, Israeli jets struck near Sharaa’s presidential palace in what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was a message to Damascus after a wave of sectarian violence involving the Druze.

The Syrian presidency condemned the Israeli bombing, saying it was a “dangerous escalation against state institutions and sovereignty” and accusing Israel of trying to “undermine stability and deepen security crises”.

Meanwhile Israel has lobbied Washington to prevent the Trump administration from lifting sanctions on Syria to maintain leverage on its fledgling government, said two western diplomats, a former US official familiar with the talks and one Syrian official.

But the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Sharaa earlier this month “made clear” Washington’s road map for Syria and pressured Israel to “get on board faster”, said a western diplomat.

Mutual recriminations have quietened in recent weeks, amid relative calm in Sweida following days of armed clashes between Druze factions — some of which enjoy Israeli backing — and other fighters, including some thought to be affiliated with the new authorities.

Neither Israel’s nor Syria’s foreign ministries immediately responded to requests for comment. Israel’s prime minister’s office declined to comment.