DAMASCUS (Dispatches) -- Nearly two years after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Syria finds itself as a ground for colonization under the rule of Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, whose regime has resigned to accommodation while Israeli forces carve out ever-expanding control across the country’s south.
Jolani—the former Al-Qaeda operative who once told his fighters that “after Damascus, Al-Quds awaited them”—has presided over a dramatic reversal. Today, his regime engages in direct talks with Israeli officials while Israeli troops conduct daily incursions, detain civilians, and seize land across Daraa, Quneitra, and the Damascus countryside without facing organized resistance. 
The August 23 meeting between his foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani and Mossad chief Roman Gofman in Jordan marked the first publicly reported encounter of its kind, though it was not the first high-level contact. 
Shaibani had already met Israeli strategic affairs Minister Ron Dermer in Paris in July and August 2025. The Amman meeting elevated the channel from political bargaining to direct engagement with Israel’s foreign intelligence chief—a concession no Syrian government has ever made. 
The timing of the Gofman meeting was telling. Days earlier, Israel struck Abu al-Duhur Air Base in Idlib—eight bombs hitting runways and hangars after Ankara sought to rehabilitate the facility. 
Shaibani acknowledged that Syria had informed Israel before the strike that work was limited to repairing war-damaged facilities and denied Turkish deployment. Israel bombed it anyway. 
By Shaibani’s own account, Syria now operates under Israeli tutelage: rehabilitation of an airfield in the country’s north requires advance notice to the occupation, only for Israel to attack regardless. 
A Syrian foreign ministry diplomat described the emerging reality in stark terms: Syria’s political decision rests in Ankara, while the security decision rests in Tel Aviv. If those limits are crossed, bombing becomes the answer. 
Israeli attacks and ground incursions continued unabated after the meeting. On the same day, Israeli troops raided Al-Rafid in Quneitra and detained a shepherd. A Syrian monitoring group recorded 267 Israeli violations during August alone and 1,752 from the beginning of 2026 through that month. 
Yet Damascus pursues a security pact with Tel Aviv. Shaibani told Reuters on August 23 that Syria “extends its hand toward diplomacy” and expects negotiations to resume “soon.”  
Meanwhile, Israeli officials told Walla that the attempt to reach a security agreement “ultimately did not work”—and blamed the easing of sanctions for reducing Syria’s incentive to compromise. 
A Lebanese analyst tracking southern Syria observed: “It is as though the Israeli incursions are preparing the ground for a new reality awaiting announcement, while Syrian policy remains unclear about the means of power at its disposal.”