Beirut, Lebanon – On Could 9, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam made his second official visit to the Syrian capital Damascus because the fall of the al-Assad regime in 2024. The journey got here as each Lebanon and Syria undergo ongoing Israeli assaults and occupation of their territories.
It additionally marks the continuation of a ‘new framework’ for relations between the 2 nations, analysts advised Al Jazeera. That adopted years of Syria exerting its political and safety affect over Lebanon, and the Lebanese group Hezbollah’s navy help for President Bashar al-Assad throughout Syria’s civil conflict.
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“Damascus is framing the connection as one between two sovereign and equal states, and it has matched the rhetoric with institutional strikes like suspending [in October] the [Lebanese-Syrian] Greater Council that symbolised Syrian tutelage [and] working embassies on each side,” Nanar Hawach, Worldwide Disaster Group’s Senior Analyst for Syria, advised Al Jazeera.
New priorities
In December 2024, Syrian opposition teams launched an operation to take government-controlled areas, together with Damascus, from the grip of the al-Assad regime. Within the early hours of December 8, Bashar al-Assad fled the nation, bringing an finish to 5 many years of dynastic household rule in Syria.
Al-Assad left the nation in tatters. A 2011 rebellion in opposition to him was violently suppressed by the regime and the conflict that adopted destroyed huge areas of the nation. Syria underneath al-Assad was remoted from the worldwide neighborhood and suffered from repeated and compounding worldwide sanctions.
The autumn of al-Assad modified the dynamic with Lebanon, Mounir Rabih, a Lebanese political analyst, advised Al Jazeera.
“Nobody in Lebanon thought al-Assad would fall and nobody anticipated [Ahmed] al-Sharaa to return to energy,” he stated, referring to the present Syrian president, who led the navy offensive that toppled his predecessor.
The sophisticated relationship between Lebanon and Syria dates again to their basis as fashionable nations. Whereas Mount Lebanon as a area had a level of native autonomy underneath the Ottoman Empire pre-1918, Lebanon as a contemporary state was established underneath the post-Ottoman French mandate, separating it from Higher Syria.
The implementation of borders modified societal, financial and political realities for a lot of, in each Syria and Lebanon. In 1971, President Hafez al-Assad got here to energy in Syria and some years later, Lebanon’s civil conflict broke out.
In 1976, Syria underneath al-Assad invaded Lebanon and would occupy components of it, retaining important political and safety affect, till 2005, when in style protests expelled the Syrian presence from Lebanon. Hafez al-Assad died in 2000 and was succeeded by his son, Bashar.
Even after Syrian troops left Lebanese territory, Syria retained affect by way of the regime’s native allies. That affect started to wane in 2011 because the Syrian rebellion turned the state’s focus to its personal inside dynamics, however al-Assad’s ousting nonetheless marks a major shift in Lebanon.
The autumn of the al-Assad regime lower off Hezbollah’s land path to obtain funding and weapons from its benefactor Iran. Each al-Assad and Hezbollah had been seen as a part of Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’, and Hezbollah had additionally performed a vital function suppressing opposition to al-Assad in Syria.
Syria’s new authorities, led by al-Sharaa, was adamantly against Hezbollah. It additionally aimed to return the nation to the worldwide fold, take away Assad-era sanctions, and play an vital financial function within the area.
As for Lebanon, Syria said its intention to deal with its neighbour as an equal, relatively than as a territory to manage or an area to play out its battles. With this new relationship got here a brand new sequence of priorities
“Damascus’s high priorities on the Lebanon file are border management and demarcation, the switch of Syrian detainees held in Lebanese prisons, refugee returns on phrases Damascus can handle, and the Assad-era figures who fled into Lebanon,” Hawach stated. “Recovering Syrian deposits trapped in Lebanese banks sits behind these, and the financial information like gasoline, electrical energy and transit rank decrease regardless of producing many of the public rhetoric.”
A brand new web page
One of many points that has dominated headlines has been the greater than 2,000 Syrians in Lebanese prisons. In March, 130 Syrian prisoners had been transferred from Lebanon to Syria the place they’ll serve the rest of their sentences, however lots of stay.
The difficulty is contentious in Lebanon, the place some are held on “terrorism” prices and others have been held for assaults on the Lebanese Military. Nonetheless, most have by no means been tried, regardless of spending years in jail, due to political gridlock, judicial strikes and political indifference.
After his newest go to, Salam stated the prisoner difficulty had been mentioned, as had strengthening cooperation between the 2 nations.
“We mentioned persevering with efforts to deal with the problem of detained Syrians [in Lebanon] and to uncover the destiny of the lacking and forcibly detained in each nations,” Salam stated after assembly al-Sharaa.
However there are additionally two main points that contact each nations that haven’t been spoken about as priorities: how all sides desires to deal with Hezbollah, and Israeli encroachments on their respective territories.
When Hezbollah attacked Israel on March 2 in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rumours began to unfold in Lebanon over potential Syrian intervention. The Reuters information company, citing sources briefed on the subject, reported that al-Sharaa had rejected the concept of deploying troops to Lebanon to assist disarm Hezbollah.
“What Damascus is already doing might be the ceiling of what it is going to do: sealing its aspect of the border, breaking apart smuggling networks, and signalling help, a minimum of rhetorically, for the Lebanese state’s effort to convey all weapons [including Hezbollah’s] underneath its management,” Hawach stated. “Beirut and Damascus have stored Hezbollah off the formal bilateral agenda, and each appear to search out that association helpful.”
No settlement on Israel
As for Israel, the 2 nations don’t look like discussing any form of bilateral motion or settlement in the intervening time, with each nations as an alternative centered on inside stability first.
“Beirut and Damascus share a real frequent curiosity in pushing again in opposition to Israeli territorial enlargement and the chance of being pressured into one-sided agreements, however there seems to be no structured coordination between them on the Israel file,” Hawach stated. “Every is negotiating individually underneath US mediation, and probably the most that exists for now could be leadership-level session.”
Israel’s assaults in Lebanon have killed nearly 3,000 folks since March 2 as Israeli forces push into the south, inflicting widespread destruction, demolition of homes and displacing greater than 1.2 million people. A ceasefire was introduced by Donald Trump on April 16. Since then, just one strike has hit Beirut’s suburbs, however Israeli assaults and displacement orders in southern Lebanon haven’t ceased. Nor has Hezbollah retaliation.
However Syria has additionally not escaped Israeli assault. Within the 12 months after the autumn of al-Assad, Israel struck Syria greater than 600 times. On Could 17, Fadel Abdulghany of the Syrian Community for Human Rights accused Israel of “step by step annexing” southern Syria. The day after al-Assad fell, Israel seized more land within the occupied Golan Heights.
The Syrian state has averted attacking Israel and has tried to make use of its renewed international standing to strengthen itself as an alternative. In November 2025, al-Sharaa turned the primary Syrian chief to visit the White House, marking a blossoming relationship with Trump.
Nonetheless, the Israelis attacked Syrian navy posts as lately as March, and proceed to arrange checkpoints on Syrian territory, in line with Syrian media.
“Israel is taking a part of Lebanon and a part of Syria,” Rabih stated, including that it’s making an attempt to create discord between the 2 states. Nevertheless, Rabih added {that a} new alliance is forming within the area.
“Turkiye and Saudi Arabia need Lebanon and Syria to coordinate,” he stated. He added that Syria and Lebanon would search safety that method from a wider alliance that might persuade the US to strain Israel to cease its aggression and land grabs.
However that file, analysts stated, shall be a part of a wider regional framework. In the intervening time, Lebanon and Syria appear to be working on equal footing, regardless of a historical past of Syrian hegemony over its smaller neighbour. However every nation’s precedence – and significantly Syria’s – are their very own home issues.
“Lebanon just isn’t a precedence file in Damascus proper now,” Hawach stated. “The brand new authorities is consumed with stabilising Syria, managing Israel and securing reconstruction cash, and it has neither the urge for food nor the bandwidth to pursue a extra bold agenda in Lebanon even when it wished to.”
