- Senior Israeli security officials are voicing concern over Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s ability to eradicate the ISIS terrorist organization in Syria.
- According to them, ISIS has become an indicator of a prolonged governance vacuum in the country, one that could quickly spill over to the Golan Heights and endanger Israeli communities.
U.S. President Donald Trump acted on his threat to retaliate against ISIS following the killing of three Americans, two soldiers and a civilian interpreter, in a terrorist attack carried out by an ISIS operative in the city of Palmyra, in the Syrian desert, on December 13.
As part of the response, U.S. military aircraft struck approximately 70 ISIS targets on December 19 in the desert areas of Deir ez-Zor, Homs, and Raqqa. Jordanian Air Force jets also took part in the aerial campaign.
While President Trump described the operation as “a very powerful act of revenge,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated: “American forces have launched Operation ‘Hawk Eye Strike’ in Syria, aimed at eliminating ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons storage sites.” He defined the operation as a “retaliatory message” following the Palmyra attack in which three Americans were killed. Sources close to the Syrian Ministry of Defense in Damascus indicated that the U.S. strikes could continue and remain open-ended for several days.
Syria is marking one year since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Still, interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa now faces the central decisive test of his rule: the fight against ISIS, alongside the parallel effort to turn a fragmented Syria into a single unified state.
Senior Israeli security officials say that the December 13 ISIS attack on U.S. troops, which killed three Americans, has alarmed both Washington and Jerusalem and underscores the magnitude of the security challenge confronting al-Sharaa.
According to Syrian media, ISIS has attempted twice in recent months to assassinate al-Sharaa, both attempts failing.
Despite the overthrow of Assad’s regime, Syria’s social fractures have not healed.
Within this vacuum, ISIS has found fertile ground for action. ISIS is not a theoretical threat; it is an enemy that is highly familiar with the terrain, the population, and the regime itself, particularly al-Sharaa. Many of its operatives emerged from the same regions in Syria; some previously fought within factions that later disbanded or were absorbed into the new reality.
This is not terrorism that comes solely from outside; it feeds on the wounds and crises of Syrian society.
The new Syrian regime’s security forces launched a broad wave of arrests of ISIS operatives following the Palmyra attack. They speak of close surveillance of suspected ISIS activity, name-based watch lists, and targeted neutralizations of operatives.
Yet behind this security discourse lies a deep dilemma: to what extent can ISIS be defeated through security tools alone, when the root of the problem is social, economic, and ideological?
Israeli security officials note that al-Sharaa seeks to present himself as the president of a state, not as the commander of “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.” However, the transition from revolutionary-military rule to institutionalized sovereignty requires change not only at the top of government but also at the grassroots level.
Syria has thousands of armed young men lacking formal education, stable livelihoods, or a civilian future, an ideal recruitment pool for ISIS.
The danger is clear: without frameworks for absorption, rehabilitation, and integration into state life, these young men could become a reservoir of manpower for ISIS, driven either by ideology or by despair. In this sense, ISIS in Syria is not merely a terrorist organization; it is a symptom of a broader governmental and social vacuum.
For the United States and Israel, the campaign against ISIS has become a central litmus test for the credibility of the new regime in Damascus. From Washington’s perspective, al-Sharaa’s ability to restrain, dismantle, and eradicate the remnants of the organization serves as a practical criterion for determining whether Syria is truly leaving the era of terrorism behind, or merely changing symbols and rhetoric.
Israeli security officials say the Palmyra attack on U.S. forces marked a turning point. In Washington, it was perceived not as an isolated incident but as proof that ISIS retains the ability to initiate attacks, penetrate defenses, and deliver a dual message: undermining internal stability while signaling outwardly that the Syrian arena remains active for terrorism despite the change of regime.
Since the attack, American pressure on Damascus has shifted from declarative rhetoric to demands for results.
The Trump administration conveyed a clear message to al-Sharaa that it wants to see arrests, dismantling of infrastructure, and effective control over desert regions and peripheral areas.
For Israel, ISIS is not the direct and immediate threat in the classic sense, but it serves as a dangerous catalyst for destabilizing the security balance in the north. On December 19, IDF forces arrested an ISIS operative in southern Syria who was planning attacks against Israel.
In Israel, the organization is viewed less as a standalone target and more as a symptom, an indicator of a prolonged governance vacuum in Syria that could rapidly spill over to the Golan Heights and threaten Israeli communities.
From the Israeli perspective, every significant ISIS attack, especially the one in Palmyra, is a reminder that the Syrian space remains porous. Areas not under effective control of the central government in Damascus could become not only havens for Sunni terrorism but also corridors of activity for Iran and its proxies.
The concern within Israel’s security establishment is a familiar dynamic: where governance is weak, radical actors enter, whether in the name of Sunni jihad or under the banner of Shiite “resistance.”
Israel’s primary concern is not only ISIS as a cross-border organization, but the possibility that the chaos it generates will be exploited by Hizbullah and pro-Iranian militias to deepen their foothold in southern Syria.
A security vacuum in the Palmyra region, the Syrian desert, and the east-west transit routes is perceived in Israel as a complementary link in the Iranian axis, one that enables movement, smuggling, and the establishment of terrorist infrastructure on the ground.
The Palmyra attack reinforced Israeli assessments that al-Sharaa’s regime is still struggling to impose genuine sovereignty, and that declarations of war on ISIS are no substitute for actual control of territory.
Any Syrian failure to eradicate the organization is viewed in Israel not merely as an internal problem for al-Sharaa’s rule, but as a regional risk that could directly affect the Golan border and Israel’s freedom of action in the northern arena.
This underpins Israel’s skepticism toward international reconstruction and stabilization processes in Syria. As long as ISIS can strike deep inside the country, and as long as Iran identifies opportunities to exploit instability, Syria will remain, in Israel’s eyes, a volatile arena rather than a restraining actor.
Within Israel’s security establishment, assessments of al-Sharaa’s chances of success in the war against ISIS are sober and even skeptical.
The prevailing assumption is that the new Syrian regime can contain a broad expansion of the organization and strike its overt cells, but will struggle greatly to eradicate ISIS’s deep infrastructure in the Syrian desert and remote tribal regions.
According to Israeli security assessments, al-Sharaa’s success depends not only on political determination or tough declarations, but on three critical conditions: effective territorial control beyond the main cities; sustained intelligence and operational cooperation with the United States; and the setting of clear limits on Iranian influence and the activity of Shiite militias, which undermine the Sunni legitimacy of the fight against ISIS.
In Israel, it is believed that as long as al-Sharaa attempts to wage a dual struggle, against ISIS on the one hand and against external actors such as Iran on the other, his ability to achieve a decisive victory will remain limited. A more plausible scenario, from the Israeli viewpoint, is that he will “manage the threat” rather than eliminate it, conducting targeted strikes, curbing ISIS’s freedom of action, but falling short of completely eradicating its presence in Syria.
Israel does not rule out the possibility that al-Sharaa may succeed in stabilizing Syria at a basic level, but at this stage sees no conditions that would enable him to defeat ISIS in an unequivocal victory.
