Defense Minister Israel Katz spoke about how he envisions Israel’s defense policy, at a conference of heads of regional councils last week.
He said he had spoken with IDF commanders in key units in Southern Command and discussed the conclusions drawn from the October 7 attack. “They said that it is not permissible to allow extremist organizations of this type to be close to the border of the State of Israel – whether in Gaza, in the North, in Syria, or near the settlements of Judea and Samaria, and anywhere – and that is our policy.”
This is now a policy Israel is seeking to implement. This involves the buffer zone in Lebanon and, also, apparently, in Gaza. In Syria, Israel is becoming more outspoken. Israel worked to prevent Iranian entrenchment between 2014 and 2024, during the Syrian civil war.
After the Assad regime fell, Israel has now shifted to moving forces into the buffer zone and onto the peak of Mount Hermon. Now, Israel is saying southern Syria must be demilitarized and that Israel will support the Druze in Syria.
“It was clear to the prime minister and me that the buffer zone had to be captured – and our policy is to remain there, at the peak of Mount Hermon and at the controlled points, indefinitely,” Katz said. “Southern Syria must be a demilitarized zone – we conveyed the messages, and the IDF was prepared…we have a great commitment to our Druze friends in Syria, we certainly strive to maintain contact with them.”
Katz also spoke about the importance of the Philadelphi Corridor and how quickly Hamas could return to smuggling if Israel is not there to control the problem. “If you don’t hold this axis, then, in those 42 days, everything would be filled with weapons. I say this from a security perspective, based on the opinions of the people and commanders on the ground.”
In the West Bank, Israel is working to remove terror threats that have built up in certain areas of the northern West Bank. “The main infrastructure of terrorism in Judea and Samaria is the refugee camps. For more than two years, Iran has been pushing weapons, funding, and guidance into the camps to build battalions, build a force, and an eastern front,” Katz said.
Changing the equation on multiple fronts
A KEY part of ending the threat is for the IDF to remain in some areas of the northern West Bank and completely clear these areas of threats. “The soldiers and commanders say that they are finally being allowed to do what is necessary, and the fact that they are staying there means that they do not have to come and go every time,” Katz said.
This is important. However, when analyzing the policy, it is clear Israel is trying to change the equation on multiple fronts. This will be a challenge in the future. How can Israel continue to deal with buffer zones in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza, as well as long-term battles in the West Bank? This is a new kind of policy. It has some commonalities with how Israel also faced unrest on borders between 1949 and 1956.
In fact, after 1967, the unrest then moved to other fronts, as Palestinian terror groups attacked from Jordan and then Lebanon in the 1970s. Israel has, therefore, witnessed this process again and again. Israel tried to maintain a security zone in southern Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s.
This didn’t always work well. When Israel left, Hezbollah filled the vacuum. The challenge ahead is for Israel to see if the new policy will lead to peace or lead to extremists continuing to fill the vacuums on the border.
While Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank are not new phenomena in this respect, the Syrian border looks to be a new type of potential front. The Assad regime worked with Iran, and this threatened Israel. The weaker the regime became, the more Iran and Hezbollah operated near the Golan.
This is the challenge for Israel. Weak regimes create power vacuums, and ungoverned spaces allow extremist groups to exploit the situation. A policy of pushing into buffer zones can help protect Israel, but the question is what will appear in the vacuum near these zones.