Executive summary

On 7 October, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict took a turn for the worse after Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, leading to a formal declaration of war by the Israeli government. In the following days, media outlets reported sporadic attacks originating from southern Syria and southern Lebanon targeting areas in northern Israel that were also met with Israeli retaliation; though limited in scope, this included targeted artillery fire into the Syrian government-controlled Quneitra and Dar’a governorate. Reactions from Palestinian groups in Syria suggest that should hostilities continue to escalate, Syria alongside Iran, Lebanon, northern Yemen and Iraq who are all part of the so-called “Axis of Resistance’’ are expected to fall in line and retaliate against Israel, opening the door for a broader regional conflict. However, certain dynamics, particularly those related to both the Damascus–Hamas relations and the likely careful calculus by Damascus as it attempts to reemerge from a decade of civil conflict, suggest the possibility of a relatively measured outcome as compared to broader regional confrontation. That said, a number of threats – largely speculative in nature and difficult to accurately ascertain – could create further Syrian-Israeli escalation.

This situation report will attempt to clear the fog on where the Syrian government fits into the latest rounds of violence and offer key considerations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for Syria. To do so, Crisis Analysis – Syria (CA-SYR) will first briefly present the events that took place starting 7 October, followed by outlining the presence of Palestinian armed groups in Syria, and explore the Syrian government’s relationship with Hamas in order to gauge the possibility of the Syrian government edging towards confronting Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian cause, but in isolation from Hamas.

This report argues that it is unlikely that the Syrian government will pursue or sponsor escalation with Israel. Nevertheless, it is difficult to decouple the latest round of violence between Israel and Hamas from the regional geopolitical realities, such as the simmering Israeli–Iranian tensions. However, the US’s firm stance on supporting Israel, rhetorically and militarily, is likely to act as a deterrent preventing hostilities from reaching extraordinary heights and limiting them to possible shelling and artillery strikes targeting Israel.