The United States has warned Israel against taking action that could disrupt Syria’s transition from international ostracism and impoverishment under the ousted Assad dynasty.
Tensions have risen over hundreds of strikes by Israel on Syria, the deadliest of which saw Israeli forces kill 13 people on Friday in the south of the country. Syria called the Israeli operation a “war crime”, while Israel said it had targeted an Islamist group.
In a post on social media, US president Donald Trump, who has been pushing for a security pact between Israel and Syria, said: “It is very important that Israel maintain a strong and true dialogue with Syria, and that nothing takes place that will interfere with Syria’s evolution into a prosperous State.”
Mr Trump said the current Syrian government offers a “historic opportunity” to achieve peace in the Middle East.
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The US president later spoke on the phone to Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and invited him to Washington in the near future. This would be the fifth visit since Trump returned to the White House in January.
While Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa said US-mediated talks between his government and Israel on a security agreement had begun, negotiations have been suspended since September.
Israeli critics have accused Mr Netanyahu of disrupting dialogue by bombing and shelling Syrian army posts, abducting Syrians, and visiting the United Nations buffer zone between Israel and Syria occupied by Israeli troops a year ago.
Mr Sharaa is a former al-Qaeda commander who became the first Syrian leader to be hosted in the White House since his country’s independence in 1946.
[ Why is Donald Trump reaching out to Syria’s new president Ahmed al-Sharaa?Opens in new window ]
He has rejected normalisation with Israel under the Abraham Accords which have established ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco – countries that have neither lost territory to nor fought with Israel.
Mr Sharaa has argued that Syria battled Israel in 1948, 1967 and 1973 and said Israel has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967 and annexed the territory in 1981.
As its price for peace, Syria is seeking the return of the Golan. Since Mr Sharaa’s family was driven from the Golan by Israel, he chose as his nom de guerre “Abu Mohammed al-Golani”.
His armed faction, the Muslim fundamentalist Nusra Front, was formed in 2012 to overthrow the Assad government and was designated by the US as a foreign terrorist organisation.
This was lifted last month. There are an estimated 500,000 Golan refugees and their descendants living in Syria while most of the 24,000 Syrian Druze who remain in the Golan retain Syrian nationality.
There are an estimated 31,000 Israeli settlers in the Golan.
Formerly branded a “terrorist” with a $10 million bounty on his head, Mr Sharaa has been praised by Mr Trump as a promising, “strong” leader.
In November he announced Syria has become the 90th member of the US-led coalition combating the al-Qaeda offshoot Islamic State, or Isis, arguing that Syria is entering a “new era” of co-operation with the US.
