WASHINGTON, March 4. /TASS/. Hezbollah sees the change of power in Syria as a big "strategic loss," tilting the balance of regional anti-Israeli unions, Ali Fayyad, a Hezbollah co-founder and a member of the Lebanese parliament, said.
"There’s no doubt that the political transformation which took place in Syria was a major strategic loss, we can’t deny that," he told the Responsible Statecraft portal.
"Our previous ties with the [Bashar Assad] regime are linked to one specific issue related to the necessity of establishing a balance against Israel in a complicated regional struggle," he said. "Our ties with the regime were strictly tied to these considerations."
According to Fayyad, the new Syrian leadership’s position on Israel "is confusing and poses a lot of questions, as Israel infiltrated and occupied Syrian territory without any stance taken from the new leadership." "This is something strange from every legal and political standpoint which you wouldn’t find in any other country," he emphasized.
Armed opposition units in Syria launched a large-scale offensive on government troops in the Aleppo and Idlib governorates in late November 2024. On December 8, they entered Damascus, while President Bashar Assad stepped down and fled the country. On the same day, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officially announced the deployment of forces in the demilitarized zone separating the Golan Heights, which belong to Israel, and Syria. Later in the day, the Israeli military took control over the eastern part of Mount Hermon that lies within Syria, part of the Golan Heights.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was a purely defensive step to thwart potential threats from Syria’s territory. However, he stressed that Israel will stay in this area as long as it takes to ensure security of its border.