The IDF did not intend for Friday’s raid in the Syrian town of Beit Jinn to spark an international incident.
Rather, it was intended as another in a series of preemptive operations to keep jihadist groups from entrenching themselves in the ungoverned pockets of southern Syria – a region Israel has been monitoring with increasing concern since the fall of the Assad regime last year.
But the ambush that met the Israeli forces on their way out, and the airstrikes that followed, turned the operation into a diplomatic issue stretching from Damascus to Washington.
Israeli intelligence had indicated that wanted members of Jamaa al-Islamiya – the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, long intertwined operationally with Hamas and Hezbollah – were regrouping in the hostile Sunni village of Beit Jinn and preparing attacks against Israel.
After extensive preparation, an IDF reserve unit moved to capture the terrorist ringleader in a predawn raid. On the way out, the unit was ambushed. Six soldiers were wounded, three of them seriously.
Air support brought in to extract them led to Syrian casualties, with Israeli officials saying more than a dozen terrorists involved in the fighting were killed, while local Syrian reports said several civilians were also among the dead.
Israel enters Syria during first anniversary of Assad's fall
The clash occurred on the first anniversary of the fall of the Assad regime, a day marked by orchestrated pro-government marches that quickly turned into angry demonstrations once news of Israeli involvement reached the streets.
What Israelis saw as an essential anti-terrorism operation, Syrians viewed as a violation of their sovereignty and a test of whether their new leadership could respond.
US Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack traveled to Damascus and met on Monday with President Ahmed al-Sharaa, as Washington continues to try to stabilize Syria’s political transition and explore the possibility of future security arrangements between Jerusalem and Damascus.
Shortly after Barrack’s meeting, US President Donald Trump posted a message on Truth Social praising Sharaa for his work in Syria, complimenting his “hard work and determination” and saying he is “working diligently to make sure good things happen.”
The post included a pointed line advising Israel to “maintain a strong and true dialogue with Syria, and that nothing takes place that will interfere with Syria’s evolution into a prosperous State.”
The timing left little doubt about the White House’s intent. Whatever sympathy Washington may have for Israel’s security concerns, American officials are expressing frustration with what they see as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unwillingness to adapt operations in Syria to the administration’s broader diplomatic strategy.
US officials have been warning for months that Israel’s raids – however justified in their own terms – risk undermining Sharaa at a moment when Washington believes he is newly receptive to engaging Israel. One senior official, quoted anonymously in Axios, lamented that Netanyahu was “seeing ghosts everywhere” and jeopardizing a historic opening.
Israel views things much differently. Where Washington sees in Shaara a leader to cultivate, Israel sees a security vacuum.
Southern Syria today is a tangle of actors, many of them hostile to Israel: remnants of Hamas’s Syrian branch, elements of the Lebanese Muslim Brotherhood, scattered jihadist networks, clan-based militias, and Iranian-aligned groups moving weapons toward Lebanon.
Turkey has also expanded its influence in the region, backing Sunni factions and jockeying for leverage in the new Syrian order. Despite Sharaa’s confident statements, his government controls only parts of Syria’s territory, and even in those areas, its authority is not complete.
Israel learned the hard way on October 7, 2023, what happens when it does not take immediate action to handle threats building up on its borders. The resulting trauma has hardened Israel’s instincts on every front – Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Lebanon, and now Syria.
The IDF’s new security doctrine is straightforward: Threats must be dismantled long before they mature. Deterrence is no longer considered sufficient. Delay is dangerous. Preemption is the new default mode.
In Syria, this doctrine has led to a sustained IDF presence inside the former United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) buffer zone, including IDF outposts, enhanced surveillance networks, and a set of quiet but consistent operations – similar to those routinely conducted in Judea and Samaria – to capture terrorist suspects and prevent terrorist infrastructure from taking root near Israel’s communities on the Golan Heights.
Friday’s operation in Beit Jinn was somewhat unusual in that it took place beyond the former UN buffer zone.
Israel has also repeatedly acted to protect the Syrian Druze, most dramatically this past July, when it came to the defense of Druze after Syrian military forces entered the Druze town of Sweida amid Druze-Bedouin clashes. Hundreds of people were killed.
Against that backdrop, Israel cannot afford to take a hands-off approach to what is happening in southern Syria so close to its border.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad have begun rebuilding infrastructure there. Iran continues its efforts to smuggle weapons through Syrian territory into Lebanon. Turkish influence is rising. Local groups are armed. The Syrian government is still consolidating. And the Beit Jinn ambush revealed that armed resistance to Israeli patrols and arrests may be increasing.
All of this is happening even as Israel and Syria have been quietly exploring whether the 1974 disengagement framework could be updated for this new era. Those discreet contacts, as reported by officials on both sides, revolve around force limitations, surveillance mechanisms, and the possibility of a more formalized set of understandings along the Golan.
But Israel insists on retaining control of Mount Hermon, a strategic position whose importance only grew after Iran used low-flying drones to exploit radar blind spots during the Israel-Hamas War.
For the time being, these talks remain exploratory. The Beit Jinn incident, and the political noise around it, will not make advancing them any easier – which is frustrating for the Americans.
The differences regarding the proper policy toward Syria between Israel and the US cannot be wished away. Washington wants Israel to slow down – to give Syria space to stabilize, to give diplomacy a chance, to avoid steps that could undermine a leader the White House is courting.
Israel wants Washington to understand that a stable Syria is today more aspiration than reality, and that security cannot be outsourced to a government still struggling to enforce its authority or to international mechanisms that rarely function where it matters.
After the October 7 massacre, Israel no longer accepts the idea that it should wait for threats to ripen. It will deal with them early – long before they metastasize.
This is the message Jerusalem must now convey to Washington politely, calmly, but firmly: Israel supports diplomatic engagement with Syria and understands the administration’s goals. But it cannot base its security on the hope that Syrian control over the south will suddenly materialize.
Until the new Syrian government can reliably ensure that jihadist factions, Iranian proxies, and Hamas-linked networks cannot operate along the frontier, Israel will continue to act preemptively – not to undermine Damascus, but to prevent a repeat of the single worst security failure in its history.
Israel does not seek escalation with Syria and does not wish to derail Trump’s diplomatic initiative. Netanyahu said as much after visiting the wounded IDF reservists on Tuesday.
Rather, it seeks something more basic: a border that does not become a launchpad for the next October 7 massacre, this time against communities on the Golan.
That requires vigilance, not passivity; action, not hesitation. And if Israel must choose between diplomatic irritation and strategic vulnerability, the lessons of the past two years leave little doubt about which path it will choose.