For the first time in decades, Syrian and Israeli officials held high-level face-to-face talks. Earlier this week, the US-brokered summit in Paris was attended behind closed doors by Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani and the US envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack.
Key points on the agenda were the de-escalation of tensions between Syria and Israel, non-interference in Syrian domestic affairs and reactivating a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria. A further issue was humanitarian assistance for Syria’s Druze minority.
On Wednesday, an Israeli government spokesperson told DW that Israel refrained from commenting on the Paris meeting. But Syria’s national SANA news agency reported that the meeting concluded with the comittment to further talks. A previous round of talks with supporting officials in late July had ended without an official agreement.
These direct talks mark a diplomatic shift after 25 years of virtually no communication at all.
The two countries have technically been at war since 1967. That year, Israel occupied Syria’s Golan Heights — a strategic plateau along their shared border — and later annexed it in 1981. The international community continues to regard the Golan Heights as Syrian territory under Israeli military occupation. To date, only the United States and Israel officially recognize it as part of Israel.
A ceasefire deal in 1974 set up a demilitarized UN buffer zone in the Golan Heights along the Israel-Syria border.
However, tensions between the countries have been soaring since the fall of Syria’s long-term dictator Bashar Assad in December 2024. Israel deployed troops beyond the demilitarized zone and carried out around 1,000 strikes on Syria — which has not retaliated.
Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa condemned the attacks but repeatedly said that he doesn’t want to go to war with Israel.
What is Israel’s agenda?
“Under current circumstances, it is difficult to envision that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government would be considering concessions beyond reciprocal offers to refrain from interfering in the efforts of Syria’s new rulers to consolidate power,” Shalom Lipner, a veteran diplomat and former advisor to seven Israeli prime ministers, including Benjamin Netanyahu, told DW.
“Immediate Israeli goals are to guarantee security along the border region with Syria, prevent any entrenchment of hostile interlopers who might compromise an accommodation with Damascus, and additionally, ensure the protection of Syria’s Druze population.”
A Syrian source, quoted by SANA, confirmed that during the meeting in Paris, Israel had also insisted on establishing a humanitarian corridor into Sweida, where many of Syria’s Druze minority live. In Israel, the Druze are a community of around 150,000 people. It is the only minority that are conscripted into Israel’s military. In Syria, around 700,000 Druze make up one of Syria’s largest minority communities.
In mid-July, a week of sectarian violence had led to more than 1,700 deaths, including civilians, in fighting between the Druze community and Arab Bedouins.
While a US-brokered ceasefire largely ended the clashes, locals have been reporting that Damascus keeps throttling access of humanitarian aid into Sweida. Syrian officials dismiss such claims. According to the news platform Axios, however, government officials expressed concern that Druze militias could use a humanitarian corridor to smuggle weapons. The Druze have meanwhile repeatedly taken to the streets to call for self-determination.
This week, Action For Humanity, the parent NGO of Syria Relief, published an alarming report.
“The humanitarian situation is deteriorating amid reported shortages in essential services and restrictions on freedom of movement,” the NGO said, adding that “displaced civilians are largely dependent on informal shelter arrangements with relatives and friends, and severe food insecurity persists.”
In turn, Yossi Mekelberg, senior consulting fellow at the London-based think tank Chatham House, views the current talks as Damascus’ chance for gaining trust within the country and abroad.
“Improving the way in which minorties are treated could serve Syria to create the space for the government to unite the country, improve its image vis-a-vis the United States and the rest of the world,” he told DW. “It could also deescalate tensions with Israel as for them, the issue of the Druze is the most pertinent.”
In his view, this could eventually lead to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from beyond the 1974 buffer zone in Syria’s south.
Nanar Hawach, senior Syria analyst at the International Crisis Group, an independent organization working to prevent wars, agrees that the talks could help Damascus “regaining trust not only of the Druze community, but also of different communities that are not aligned with the state,” he told DW.
Could more talks lead to normalizing ties?
Observers widely agree that Washington continues to be set on enhancing security and stability in the region by fostering a “prosperous Middle East” as envisioned by US President Donald Trump.
Part and parcel of this vision is normalizing ties between Syria and Israel.
“From Israel’s perspective, normalization would be a longer-term, aspirational objective,” Shalom Lipner believes.
Yossi Mekelberg doesn’t see a prospect of normalization yet, “given that the war in Gaza continues.”
But should that war end, and if progress between Israel and Syria continued “it might lead to a normalization process,” he said, stressing though that “it is unknown which direction Syria is taking, and it is also unknown what direction Israel is taking at the moment.”
Edited by Andreas Illmer
