Israel Gives Secret Aid to Syrian Rebels - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-gives-secret-aid-to-syrian-re...

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-gives-secret-aid-to-syrian-rebels-1497813430

WORLD | MIDDLE EAST

Israel Gives Secret Aid to Syrian Rebels

Fighters near Golan Heights in Syria receive cash and humanitarian help

Israeli soldiers took part in a training exercise in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, near the Syrian border in March.
PHOTO: JALAA MAREY!AGENCE FRANCE"PRESSE!GETTY IMAGES

By Rory Jones in Tel Aviv, Noam Raydan in Beirut and

Suha Ma’ayeh in Amman, Jordan
June 18, 2017 3#17 p.m. ET

Israel has been regularly supplying Syrian rebels near its border with cash as well as
food, fuel and medical supplies for years, a secret engagement in the enemy country’s
civil war aimed at carving out a buffer zone populated by friendly forces.

The Israeli army is in regular communication with rebel groups and its assistance
includes undisclosed payments to commanders that help pay salaries of fighters and
buy ammunition and weapons, according to interviews with about half a dozen Syrian
fighters. Israel has established a military unit that oversees the support in Syria—a
country that it has been in a state of war with for decades—and set aside a specific
budget for the aid, said one person familiar with the Israeli operation.

Israel has in the past acknowledged treating some 3,000 wounded Syrians, many of
them fighters, in its hospitals since 2013 as well as providing humanitarian aid such as
food and clothing to civilians near the border during winter. But interviews with half a
dozen rebels and three people familiar with Israel’s thinking reveal that the country’s
involvement is much deeper and more coordinated than previously known and entails
direct funding of opposition fighters near its border for years.

“Israel stood by our side in a heroic way,” said Moatasem al-Golani, spokesman for the
rebel group Fursan al-Joulan, or Knights of the Golan. “We wouldn’t have survived
without Israel’s assistance.”

Israel’s aim is to keep Iran-backed fighters allied to the Syrian regime, such as the
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, away from the 45-mile stretch of border on the
divided Golan Heights, the three people said.

But its support for rebels risks heightening tension with President Bashar al-Assad’s
government, which has long accused Israel of helping rebel groups. Mr. Assad has said
Israel supports rebel groups and launches airstrikes in Syrian territory to undermine
his hold on power. Israel has said it doesn’t favor any one outcome in the civil war.

Israel captured part of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war and later annexed
it—a move the international community doesn’t recognize.

The threat of a permanent presence of Iranian and Hezbollah forces on the Syrian
side of the strategic plateau could drag Israel’s military further into a conflict that
it has watched warily but mostly stayed out of since it began in 2011. Israeli officials
haven’t ruled out such an escalation at a time when they are cultivating other alliances
with Arab states against their common enemy—Iran.

Fursan al-Joulan’s commander, who goes by the nickname Abu Suhayb, says his group

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Israel Gives Secret Aid to Syrian Rebels - WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-gives-secret-aid-to-syrian-re...

gets roughly $5,000 a month from Israel. It isn’t linked to the Western-backed Free
Syrian Army and doesn’t receive Western funding or arms.

The office of Israel’s prime minister referred questions to the Israeli military, which
didn’t respond to requests for comment on whether it was sending cash to or dealing
directly with rebel commanders in the Golan region. It said only that it was “committed
to securing the borders of Israel and preventing the establishment of terror cells and
hostile forces … in addition to providing humanitarian aid to the Syrians living in the
area.”

The person familiar with Israel’s assistance confirmed that cash moves across the
border but said it goes for humanitarian purposes. However, rebels interviewed said
they use the cash to pay fighters’ salaries and to buy weapons and ammunition
—something the Israeli military wouldn’t comment on.

Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah have played a major role in propping up Mr.
Assad’s forces. That help, as well as significant military intervention by Russia, has
given the regime the upper hand in the multisided war.

Given the ascendancy of Iran in the war, Israel now fears it will establish control of a
strip of land in Syria and Iraq that could be used to transport weapons to military bases
in southern Lebanon and the Syrian side of the Golan.

Israeli officials have several times accused the Syrian regime and its Iranian and Shiite
allies of planning attacks against Israel from Syrian side of the Golan. By contrast,
Israeli officials have pointed out that rebels in that area have never tried to attack.

An Islamic State affiliate also has carved out a pocket of control on the south end of the
Syrian Golan and clashes with rebels at times. Its fighters exchanged fire with Israeli
forces last year.

The Israeli army has occasionally intervened in the Syrian war by launching airstrikes
to stop suspected Iranian arms shipments bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

ISRAELI INVOLVEMENT IN SYRIAN CRISIS

2011:Syrian uprising against Iran-backed President Bashar al-Assad begins.

2012: Syrian rebel group the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, which has a presence in the divided Golan Heights
near Israel’s border, forms and later declares allegiance to Islamic State. It then joins with other groups to
form the Khalid ibn al-Walid Army, an offshoot of Islamic State.
2013: Israel acknowledges it is treating Syrians wounded in the war in hospitals near the border. Secretly, the
military begins to build a relationship with rebel commanders on the Syrian side of the Golan and starts
sending aid.
January 2015: An alleged Israeli airstrike kills Hezbollah militants and a general in Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps near Quneitra province in the Golan Heights. Israel later says the militants were
planning to attack Israelis.
June 2015: Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon says Israel is helping Syrian rebels with medical
treatment in return for assurances they won’t attack the Druse—a religious minority group that straddles the
Israeli and Syrian sides of the Golan.
September 2015: Russia enters the war on the side of the Assad regime, tipping the balance of power in
favor of the Iran-backed president.
December 2015: Lebanese Hezbollah militant Samir Kuntar dies in an alleged Israeli airstrike in Damascus
suburb. Israeli officials later say he was planning attacks against Israel from the Syrian side of the Golan.
2016: Israel secretly sets up an army unit and budget to manage relationship with rebels and civilians on the
Golan Heights, say people familiar with the policy.
November 2016: An Israeli airstrike kills four Khalid ibn al-Walid militants in Syrian Golan after Israeli soldiers
come under fire.
March 2017: Israeli warplanes carry out airstrikes inside Syria, drawing fire from antiaircraft missiles in the
most intense military exchange between the two countries since the start of the Syrian conflict.
June 2017: Syrian rebels say they have been receiving cash from Israel for the past four years that they use
to help pay salaries of fighters and buy ammunition and weapons.

This effort to set up a de facto buffer zone in Syria is reminiscent of another Israeli
scheme to protect its northern border by carving out a so-called security zone in south
Lebanon during that country’s civil war in the 1970s and 1980s. Known as the “Good
Fence” policy, it preceded an Israeli invasion of south Lebanon in 1982 that helped
spawn Hezbollah. Hezbollah battled the Israelis until they withdrew in 2000.

Israel has dubbed the current Golan operation “The Good Neighborhood” policy,
according Ehud Ya’ari, a fellow at the Washington Institute and Israeli political analyst
briefed on Israel’s support to Syrian militias. It began under former Defense Minister
Moshe Ya’alon and continued under his successor, Avigdor Lieberman.

The fighters said rebel groups scattered across a roughly 125-square-mile border zone
regularly deal with Israel.

“It’s a matter of interests,” said the person familiar with Israeli policy. Israel offers the
humanitarian support and in return gets a “buffer zone” of local militias defending
themselves.

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Fursan al-Joulan is the main rebel group coordinating with Israel, according to
fighters. It first made contact with the Israeli military in 2013 and Israel soon began
sending cash and other aid, fighters said.

The group had just launched an offensive against regime forces in southwestern
Quneitra province, which encompasses the Syrian side of the Golan, according to the
spokesman Mr. Golani, who uses a nom de guerre.

The fighters carried wounded comrades to a border point where they were met by
Israeli soldiers speaking Arabic, said Mr. Golani. Relatives of the wounded men pleaded
for help and ambulances soon arrived to take the injured to hospitals in Israel. The
moment was a turning point that opened communication between Israel and the
moderate faction of opposition fighters, he said.

For Mr. Golani, the contact was also bittersweet. His cousin had died shortly before the
encounter, killed by shrapnel that sliced open his stomach. He said he believes his
cousin would have survived with surgery.

Fursan al-Joulan, based in Quneitra province, has roughly 400 fighters loosely allied
with four other rebel groups on the Golan that also receive Israeli aid, according to the
commander Abu Suhayb and other rebels. Some of these other groups are affiliated
with the Free Syrian Army or receive other Western funding and weapons.

In total, there are roughly 800 rebel fighters across more than a dozen villages in this
area, where thousands of civilians live, fighters said. Many of the rebels and civilians in
this area rely on some level of support from Israel, they added.

“Most people want to cooperate with Israel,” said a fighter with rebel group Liwaa
Ousoud al-Rahman, also fighting on the Golan.

Write to Rory Jones at rory.jones@wsj.com

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