Beirut, Lebanon – On Might 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 endure ongoing Israeli assaults and occupation of their territories.
It additionally marks the continuation of a ‘new framework’ for relations between the 2 nations, analysts instructed Al Jazeera. That adopted years of Syria exerting its political and safety affect over Lebanon, and the Lebanese group Hezbollah’s navy assist for President Bashar al-Assad throughout Syria’s civil struggle.
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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 either side,” Nanar Hawach, Worldwide Disaster Group’s Senior Analyst for Syria, instructed 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 towards him was violently suppressed by the regime and the struggle that adopted destroyed huge areas of the nation. Syria beneath al-Assad was remoted from the worldwide group and suffered from repeated and compounding worldwide sanctions.
The autumn of al-Assad modified the dynamic with Lebanon, Mounir Rabih, a Lebanese political analyst, instructed Al Jazeera.
“Nobody in Lebanon thought al-Assad would fall and nobody anticipated [Ahmed] al-Sharaa to return to energy,” he mentioned, referring to the present Syrian president, who led the navy offensive that toppled his predecessor.
The difficult relationship between Lebanon and Syria dates again to their basis as trendy nations. Whereas Mount Lebanon as a area had a level of native autonomy beneath the Ottoman Empire pre-1918, Lebanon as a contemporary state was established beneath the post-Ottoman French mandate, separating it from Larger 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 struggle broke out.
In 1976, Syria beneath al-Assad invaded Lebanon and would occupy elements of it, retaining vital political and safety affect, till 2005, when standard 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 via 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 big shift in Lebanon.
The autumn of the al-Assad regime reduce off Hezbollah’s land path to obtain funding and weapons from its benefactor Iran. Each al-Assad and Hezbollah have been seen as a part of Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’, and Hezbollah had additionally performed a vital position 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 essential financial position within the area.
As for Lebanon, Syria said its intention to deal with its neighbour as an equal, fairly than as a territory to regulate or an area to play out its battles. With this new relationship got here a brand new sequence of priorities
“Damascus’s prime 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 mentioned. “Recovering Syrian deposits trapped in Lebanese banks sits behind these, and the financial recordsdata like fuel, electrical energy and transit rank decrease regardless of producing a lot 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 have been transferred from Lebanon to Syria the place they’ll serve the rest of their sentences, however a whole lot 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 mentioned the prisoner situation had been mentioned, as had strengthening cooperation between the 2 nations.
“We mentioned persevering with efforts to handle the difficulty of detained Syrians [in Lebanon] and to uncover the destiny of the lacking and forcibly detained in each nations,” Salam mentioned 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 doable 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 facet of the border, breaking apart smuggling networks, and signalling assist, no less than rhetorically, for the Lebanese state’s effort to convey all weapons [including Hezbollah’s] beneath its management,” Hawach mentioned. “Beirut and Damascus have saved 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 type of bilateral motion or settlement in the mean time, with each nations as a substitute centered on inside stability first.
“Beirut and Damascus share a real frequent curiosity in pushing again towards Israeli territorial growth 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 mentioned. “Every is negotiating individually beneath US mediation, and essentially the most that exists for now could be leadership-level session.”
Israel’s assaults in Lebanon have killed virtually 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 Might 17, Fadel Abdulghany of the Syrian Community for Human Rights accused Israel of “progressively annexing” southern Syria. The day after al-Assad fell, Israel seized more land within the occupied Golan Heights.
The Syrian state has prevented attacking Israel and has tried to make use of its renewed world standing to strengthen itself as a substitute. In November 2025, al-Sharaa grew to become the primary Syrian chief to visit the White House, marking a blossoming relationship with Trump.
Nonetheless, the Israelis attacked Syrian navy posts as just lately as March, and proceed to arrange checkpoints on Syrian territory, in keeping with Syrian media.
“Israel is taking a part of Lebanon and a part of Syria,” Rabih mentioned, including that it’s attempting 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 mentioned. 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 mentioned, will likely be a part of a wider regional framework. In the meanwhile, 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 mentioned. “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.”
