Early on Friday morning, a group of Syrian men crossed into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights through a UN-monitored buffer zone.
With no diplomatic relations between Syria and Israel, Syrians crossing here would normally risk being shot or arrested.
This visit, by religious leaders from Syria’s Druze minority, signals the dramatic changes in Israel’s strategy along this frontier and its expanding military control of Syrian territory, in a direct challenge to the new government in Damascus.
It’s the first time in five decades that Druze leaders have crossed from Syria into Israeli-controlled territory to visit Druze religious sites and communities here.
The buffer zone they crossed was set up in a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Syria after the 1973 War, when Israel occupied – and later annexed – Syrian territory in the Golan Heights.
Last December, following the fall of the former Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, Israel moved troops into the buffer zone, in contravention of the ceasefire agreement which bans the presence of any military forces or equipment from either side.
Israel has now established military outposts in the zone, including on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, or Jabal al-Sheikh, the area’s highest peak. Israeli military correspondents say nine such posts have been set up since December, with Israel’s defence minister, Yisrael Katz, saying that his forces were “preparing to stay in Syria for an indefinite period”.
Israel has also carried out repeated incursions into southern Syria – up to 15km (nine miles) beyond the buffer zone, according to Israeli military correspondents – and has warned that it would act against any Syrian government forces or other armed groups who enter Syrian provinces south of Damascus.
Mr Katz said this week that the Israeli airforce had bombed 40 targets in southern Syria in a single night – part of what Israel says is a bombing campaign to destroy weapons stores and military equipment it fears could fall into the hands of its enemies.
The southern provinces of Syria, which run along the frontier with Israel, are home to many of Syria’s Druze – Arabs who practice a variant of Shia Islam – whose community stretches across Syria, Israel and Lebanon.
Druze in Syria have watched over the past three months, as Israeli forces have moved in and out of their villages.
Their compliance is crucial to Israel’s security goals. And Israel has made their protection a key justification for its military strategy.
Earlier this month, after clashes in Jaramana, south of Damascus, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Katz instructed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to prepare to defend the Druze community there, and “deliver a sharp and clear warning message: if the regime harms the Druze, it will be harmed”.
“We are obligated to our Druze brothers in Israel to do everything to prevent harm to their Druze brothers in Syria, and will take all the necessary steps to maintain their safety,” the statement said, describing Syria’s new government as a “terrorist regime of extreme Islam”.
Israel has been loudly proclaiming the risks it says minorities like the Druze face from Syria’s new leaders.
But not all Druze – on either side of the frontier – accept that’s the real reason for Israel’s military presence there.
“This story that they want to protect the Druze, we don’t believe in it,” said Nabi al-Halabi, a Druze activist in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. “The main issue is that Israel wants to secure its border,” he told me. “The border is the main thing, not us.”
Israel is also offering sweeteners along with its new military incursions. The visit by religious leaders across the frontier this week is one. Aid to Druze communities in Syria is another. And Israel has also promised that Syrian agricultural and construction workers will be able to cross into the Golan Heights for work.
There’s also the promise of new education funding for Druze living in the Golan – a reminder of Israel’s investment in the territory it annexed in 1981.
It won’t have escaped attention on either side of the frontier that Syria’s new president al-Sharaa has his family roots in the Golan.
While Sunni Syrians fled after the 1973 war, some Druze stayed on and formed close ties to Israel, serving in the army and even taking Israeli citizenship.
Despite his familial roots in the occupied Golan Heights, Syria’s new interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa has not so far broached the issue of Israel’s annexation of Syrian territory since 1973, instead demanding that Israel withdraw from its most recent incursions into the buffer zone and beyond.
His government has also drawn up a 12-point plan giving the Druze minority in Syria limited autonomy within Syria’s diverse population – a step many see as positive.
The activist Nabi al-Halabi says, after decades watching from outside the repressive rule of President Assad, many Druze on the Israeli side of the buffer zone are now assessing what Syria’s transition could mean for them.
“After almost 60 years of Israeli occupation in the Golan Heights, and two or three generations that have been born and live and work in Israel, we’re again looking east,” he said.
“In the case of a future peace agreement between Israel and Syria, what will happen to us? People want to see how the new regime will act — with the Druze community, the Christians, the Alawites. If we satisfied, and there are democratic elections and free speech, I believe people in the Golan Heights will be happy to be under the Syrian government again.”
