Syria and Israel, the forgotten conflict that threatens stability in the Middle East

Syria and Israel are two fundamental pillars on the chessboard of the Middle East. The Syrian conflict has highlighted the complexity of this region. In this spiral of instability, the country led by Bachar al-Assad has blamed Israel for attacking with missiles an airbase used by troops loyal to the regime and by Iranian troops in the province of Homs. 

"The air defences of the Syrian Arab Army were confronted on Wednesday with an Israeli missile attack aimed at the T4 airport in the east of Homs", a military source told the Syrian news agency SANA, stressing that most of these missiles were shot down. The attack took place at 22.23 this Wednesday (local time) when "enemy Israeli warplanes launched several missiles from the al-Tanf side against the T4 base". The reaction of the Syrian air defences meant that most of the losses were material, according to the information issued by this agency. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has confirmed this air attack and stated that explosions were heard while the regime's air defences intercepted these missiles. This attack is the second to take place in less than a week, after last Monday this same institution reported the deaths of at least eleven people, including one civilian, in the attacks attributed to Israel that took place in southern Damascus and the southern province of Deraa against positions of troops loyal to the Syrian government and the militias of combatants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah. 

Israel has carried out hundreds of incursions into Syria since the outbreak of civil war in 2011, directed mainly against Iranian and Hezbollah forces. The Israeli army does not usually recognise this type of attack; however, on 3 August it announced that it had used fighter planes, attack helicopters and other warplanes to attack Syrian military targets in southern Syria. 

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was clear this Sunday when he warned that the group would kill one Israeli soldier for every one of its fighters killed by Israel, after one of its fighters was killed in an Israeli attack in Syria on 20 July. These events took place at the same time as Tel Aviv intensified its relations with Dubai in the framework of the agreement to formalise diplomatic relations between the two nations. 

The quest for stability and peace in the region was the focus of the discourse of the two countries, which announced the normalisation of their diplomatic relations on 13 August. With this announcement, the Gulf nation has become the third Arab country to have relations with Israel, in addition to Egypt and Jordan.

The estrangement between Israel and Syria could jeopardise the stability on which this US-sponsored agreement is based. "This historic diplomatic breakthrough will promote peace in the Middle East region [...] The three countries face many common challenges and will benefit mutually from today's historic achievement," they said in a joint statement.

However, on the flip side of this chessboard, attacks by Israel have continued. The Israeli authorities consider the presence of Iran in Syria a threat. Meanwhile, the latter has asked the UN on several occasions to take measures to prevent a repetition of this type of action, which has been part of the Syrian reality since the beginning of the conflict in 2011.