Israel wasted no time following the abrupt collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. Within hours of Assad’s fall on December 8, 2024, Israeli forces seized the buffer zone separating the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from the rest of Syria. They raised Israel’s flag atop Mount Hermon.
More than a month later, Israeli troops remain stationed in the United Nations-patrolled area — raiding government buildings and summoning residents for questioning — all the while alleging its presence is necessary to secure Israel’s border as the balance of power shifts in Syria.
Yet a combination of soldier and settler actions as of late question whether Israel has long-term plans for Syria.
Eyeing Syria
The same day as Assad’s ousting and Israel’s invasion, Uri Tzafon, an Israeli settler movement to reoccupy southern Lebanon, wrote on their blog, “In Syria too, we must go at least 10 kilometers [approximately six miles] deep and reclaim the entire Hermon range. Jewish settlement will ensure Israeli control for generations.”
The Nachala settler movement, which has been active in advocating for Israeli resettlement of Gaza, also called for occupying Syria for the sake of security.
The answer to the chaos in Syria – taking territory and Jewish settlement,” Nachala wrote on Facebook on December 8, 2024. “Whoever still thinks it’s possible to leave our fate in the hands of a foreign actor — forsakes Israel’s security!”
The post included a biblical map showing Israel’s territory, including all of Lebanon and most of Syria and Iraq.
While some settlers stressed the need to establish settlements to safeguard security, others were more transparent with their rationale. For instance, Yaakov Socol, a member of Uri Tzafon, wrote in an op-ed on the Israeli right-wing news website Arutz Sheva:
The territories in question are part of the Land of Israel and are full of Jewish heritage sites. We have every right to own these territories and annex them to the State of Israel…This is not about taking over the land of another people, but rather taking over a territory that originally belonged to us…these are our territories by right, and to ensure our continued existence in these territories for the distant future, a Jewish settlement should be established on the ruins of the Arab villages.”
Other social media posts also expressed enthusiasm over further Israeli occupation of Syria.
My Israel, which describes itself as a Zionist Israeli online movement, posted images of soldiers raising the Israeli flag on Mount Hermon with the caption “Syria. The nation of Israel lives” in Hebrew.
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A video of Orthodox Jews praying in what they alleged was the Syrian village of Hader circulated online.
According to Israeli news site The Hottest Place in Hell, the video was shared in Uri Tzafon’s WhatsApp group with members confused about how the activists entered a closed military area. One Uri Tzafon member wrote that they “probably entered with the help of one of the soldiers in the area, it happens all the time. They wouldn’t have entered without the cooperation of soldiers.”
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The website also detailed how the ideology of messianic soldiers is infiltrating Israel’s army. Footage of reservists carrying a Torah scroll into the post they were staying at in Syria went viral across Israeli social media.
Speaking to The Hottest Place in Hell, one soldier said how, after they entered Syria, another soldier said on the radio that “he was very excited that we were here, and signed off with ‘Blessed are you, sir, expanding Israel’s borders.’”
“There is no gap that religion is not pushed into, but in Syria, it is simply an expression of our foothold there,” the anonymous soldier told The Hottest Place in Hell.
In 2024, speculation began to abound on whether Israel’s war goal wasn’t just eliminating Hamas but also included establishing an empire in the Middle East, as Israeli forces headed into Lebanon and now Syria.
“Under the fog of all of this, there’s this empire-building project, which is like greater Israel on steroids in a way,” Shaul Magid, a Jewish Studies professor at Harvard Divinity School, told MintPress News.
The definition of Greater Israel varies, but generally, it refers to the state of Israel expanding its territory to include what proponents consider the historic land of Israel according to the Bible. Some define this as having Israeli sovereignty from the Mediterranean Sea (including Gaza) to the occupied West Bank and sometimes the Sinai Peninsula and occupied Golan Heights. Some attribute the term to envision it extending from the Euphrates to the Nile rivers.
“Mount Hermon will either become permanently or formally [occupied] in the sense that it will be considered sovereign Israeli territory,” Palestinian-Dutch analyst Mouin Rabbani told MintPress News.
Rabbani explained, however, that from the state’s perspective, capturing this fertile, water-rich area is less about ideology but rather about exerting pressure.
“Israel has seized the highest peak in Syria, which is very valuable for military and intelligence purposes,” Rabbani said. “The main reason it’s being done is not so much ideological, territorial expansion, greater Israel, and so on, but primarily in order to establish Israeli hegemony in the Middle East and particularly decisive Israeli influence over what happens next in Syria.”
Who is behind the movement to ‘settle’ Syria?
The Uri Tzafon movement was established to commemorate Yisrael Socol, an Israeli soldier killed in Gaza in January 2024. Socol advocated for settlements in the besieged Gaza Strip but also dreamed of conquering Lebanon.
“Even when he went to fight the enemy in Gaza and take possession of the Gaza Strip, he knew that the entire war in the south was only a prelude to the great war in the north,” Uri Tzafon’s website reads. “He saw the Gaza war in the shadow of the approaching Lebanon war, and both in the shadow of the Temple Mount.”
His family even engraved the following on his tombstone: “I saw you, Gaza, in the shade of the cedars of Lebanon.”
Following his death, Amos Azaria, a professor at Ariel University located in the Israeli settlement of Ariel, visited Socol’s family and, through their discussions, decided to found the Uri Tzafon movement in Socol’s honor.
Nachala was founded by Rabbi Moshe Levinger, a leader in Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful), a messianic Jewish movement promoting the settlement of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967. Prominent settler-activist Daniella Weiss now leads the movement. The organization made headlines in 2021 for establishing the Evyatar outpost in the northern West Bank and, in the wake of Israel’s war on Gaza, has found a new target — resettling Gaza.
While Uri Tzafon is listed in Israel’s Registrar of Associations, the organization hasn’t filed any financial documents, given how new it is. According to a review by MintPress News, Uri Tzafon hasn’t led any donation campaigns except for crowdfunding a children’s book encouraging Jewish settlement in southern Lebanon.
On the other hand, Nachala is funded in a myriad of ways. The settlement movement receives money through its financial arm, Geula Titnu La’aretz (in English: “the land shall be redeemed”), a registered non-profit in Israel’s Registrar of Associations, through its public benefit company, Hakupah Haleumit Lebinyan Eretz Yisrael or “The National Fund for the Building of the Land of Israel,” and through donations on crowdfunding websites, Charidy and Peach.
Geula Titnu La’aretz hasn’t filed annual reports with the Israeli registrar since 2021 when it received NIS 709,513 (approximately $196,000) in domestic donations. According to its recent filings, Hakupah Haleumit Lebinyan Eretz Yisrael received nearly $91,430 in 2022, with almost 40% coming from abroad.
On Charidy, donations can be made to Seu Ziona Nes Vedegel, an organization promoting Jewish settlement. According to its Israeli registrar page, it raised nearly one million dollars in donations in 2023. The name refers to a Zionist pioneering song from the early days of the Jewish settlement of Palestine, “Bear Your Banner to Zion.” While little is known about Seu Ziona Nes Vedegel, it does share an address and phone number with Geula Titnu La’aretz.
MintPress News contacted Charidy and Peach on why it allows campaigns advocating for Jewish settlement in occupied territory — which is against international law — on its platforms but did not receive a response by the time of publication. Uri Tzafon and Nachala also did not respond to MintPress News’ requests for an interview.
From military bases to ‘settler outposts’
A week after Assad’s fall in Syria, Israel’s government approved plans to expand Israeli settlements in the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel seized during the 1967 Six-Day War. Netanyahu said he wants to double the settler population in the Golan, which currently has a settler population of approximately 30,000 concentrated in 35 settlements.
While settlement expansion in the Golan has received significant support from Israel’s parliament, so too has the idea of settling Syrian land beyond the Golan.
“The State of Israel must seize a security belt against the new jihadist regime in Syria that will include the Syrian Mount Hermon and a significant area close to the border,” Israeli parliamentary member Zvi Sukkot said. “The political and military price is probably lower than ever… the security benefit is enormous.”
On X, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, who is a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, wrote: “Israel must urgently renew its control over the peak of Mount Hermon and establish a new defense line based on the 1974 ceasefire line. Jihadists must not be allowed to establish themselves near our communities.”
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And in June 2024, at Uri Tzafon’s “First Lebanon Conference,” Dr. Hagi Ben Artzi, Netanyahu’s brother-in-law and Uri Tzafon member, told participants that Israel’s borders should be expanded to include Syria — according to what was promised in the Bible.
“We don’t want even one meter beyond the Euphrates River. We are humble. [But] what we were promised, we must conquer,” Ben Artzi said.
Southern Lebanon and southern Syria have long been part of the Zionist vision of a Jewish state. In fact, Zionist leaders were in conversation with the United Kingdom and France to include these areas while working to establish a state.
“They said they need these lands to absorb hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the world,” Nizar Ayoub, founder and director of Al-Marsad, an Arab rights center in the Golan Heights, told MintPress News. “Southern Lebanon and southern Syria are very crucial for the future state of Israel.”
Al-Marsad researcher Dr. Nazeh Brik pointed out that military control often serves as a prelude to eventual Israeli settlement — just as it’s done in the West Bank and Golan.
“Most of the settlements began as a military base, and then it became a civilian settlement,” Brik said.
Local Syrian sources say Israel has expanded beyond the buffer zone to occupy the villages of Arab al-Sudi, Shabraq, Sihyun, Nofa and the east of the town of Sayda. Israeli forces have also taken control of Syrian water sources, including the Saharan al-Julan Dam. Taking control of the water supply is part of the settlement strategy, Ayoub explained.
“Israel won’t leave the new occupation area,” Ayoub said. “They need new settlers to control the land and the water. So they need a new settler power to continue controlling the area.” And with Uri Tzafon and Nachala, they already have Israelis ready to take up that mantle.
Feature photo | An Israeli tanks blocks a road leading to the Syrian town of Quneitra, Jan. 5, 2025. Mosa’ab Elshamy | AP
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist for MintPress News covering Palestine, Israel, and Syria. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The New Arab and Gulf News.