US President Donald Trump’s administration will support Israel in maintaining a buffer zone in Syria for years to come, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
Although the EU and UN are making significant progress in normalizing relations with the new Syrian regime of Ahmed al-Sharaa, including at a major summit in Paris on Thursday, the Jewish state is confident that the Trump administration understands Jerusalem’s concerns that the new regime could be a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
In that sense, even if the Europeans and the UN start pressuring Israel to withdraw in the coming months, as long as the Jewish state has support from the American president to maintain the buffer zone, the IDF is expected to remain there for a very extended period.
With Sharaa not even committing to elections before a period of four years passes, Israel believes it will be able to viably argue that the true colors of the regime will not yet be clear even by the end of 2025.
Significantly, it understands that Trump does not want to spend US time and energy on Syria and would like to withdraw the remaining American forces there, but this would not impact his continued support for an Israeli buffer zone there.
Trump supports Israel in Syria
Until now, pressure had been steadily increasing on the Jewish state to withdraw from the Syria buffer zone, given Sharaa’s consistent public statements that he will respect the 1974 armistice between the countries and his concrete moves to reintegrate with the West.
In that vein, earlier public statements by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz about staying in Syria for all of 2025 or longer had appeared to be maximalist statements to try to pressure key parties involved in Syria to take Israeli security seriously.
However, the latest revelations suggest that Trump administration support for Israeli presence in Syria remains undaunted even two months after the Jewish state created the buffer zone around December 8 and despite progress to remove sanctions against Sharaa’s government from the Assad-regime days.
IDF troops in Jenin
Meanwhile, IDF troops may remain in Jenin even several months after the more intense part of the current operation in the West Bank concludes, sources said.
Pressed that the operation appears to have slowed and that in the early days, many terrorists were killed and arrested, and now military announcements are often about only catching or killing one terrorist, sources said this is because many of the terrorists fled from Jenin.
It was in this context that the sources said that the situation in Jenin and northern Samaria would not go back to what it was in the past since forces would remain there even after the operation concluded, signaling a paradigm shift for maintaining security in the West Bank.
In contrast, after two prior large operations in Jenin in July 2023 and August 2024, the military completely pulled out of the area.
Regarding Lebanon, sources were adamant that the IDF will maintain a presence in five key defensive positions on the Israel-Lebanon border even after the February 18 extended deadline for the military to withdraw from southern Lebanon.
According to sources, despite public denials by the Lebanese government, both it and the US have agreed to such an arrangement over Hezbollah’s objections.
Asked about the fact that even these five positions will not really allow Israel to police whether Hezbollah fighters return to southern Lebanon under the guise of being civilians (many of their arms are still hidden there, so they can return south unarmed), sources said the military will initiate new attacks anytime there is a violation on the Lebanese side of the border.
For example, IDF drones may detect Hezbollah fighters dressed as civilians, opening up a hiding spot where weapons are concealed, and could then fire on them without setting foot in enemy territory.
There are hopes that the Lebanese Army will take its role to keep Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon seriously, but based on reports that some Lebanese military officials are working with Hezbollah, the IDF will not solely rely on its neighbor’s forces.