Israel Presents Syria with Sweeping New Security Proposal, Report Reveals

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – Israel has presented Syria with a detailed and far-reaching proposal for a new security agreement, a plan that includes a map of proposed demilitarized zones stretching from the southwestern outskirts of Damascus all the way to the Israeli border, according to an Axios report.

The Israeli offer, which reportedly seeks to replace the long-standing 1974 disengagement agreement, is being quietly facilitated by the Trump administration and is set to be the subject of a high-level trilateral meeting in London this week, a development that comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expresses an interest for a direct meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

However the Axios report also detailed that, according to information obtained from an Israeli official, "at this stage, the likelihood of that [meeting] happening is low."

This extraordinary diplomatic gambit, detailed in a report by Barak Ravid for the news outlet Axios, citing two sources familiar with the details, represents a significant escalation in the quiet, U.S.-mediated diplomacy that has been taking place between the two long-time adversaries.

The proposal was reportedly made several weeks ago, and while Syria has not yet formally responded, it has been working on a counterproposal in recent weeks. The next crucial step in this process is scheduled for Wednesday in London, where Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani are set to meet for a third time, alongside U.S. envoy Tom Barrack, who has been the key mediator in the talks.

The security agreement being negotiated is a direct consequence of the dramatic geopolitical shifts that have occurred in the region since the collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024.

The 1974 disengagement pact, which had for decades maintained a fragile peace along the border, became effectively irrelevant after the regime's fall and Israel's subsequent occupation of the buffer zone on the Syrian side of the border.

The new Israeli proposal, according to the Axios report, is modeled on Israel's historic 1979 peace agreement with Egypt, which divided the Sinai Peninsula into three distinct zones with varying levels of demilitarization based on their proximity to the Israeli border. The Israeli plan for Syria reportedly envisions a similar structure, dividing the area southwest of Damascus into three zones where the Syrian military would be permitted to maintain different levels of forces and types of weaponry.

The proposal, however, is being described as a "maximalist" set of demands from the Israelis. According to the report by Axios, it calls for the existing buffer zone to be extended by two kilometers on the Syrian side. 

In the new, expanded zone closest to the Israeli border, the Axios report details, all military forces and heavy weapons would be prohibited, though Syria would be permitted to maintain a presence of police and internal security forces. Most significantly, the proposal reportedly calls for the entire area from the southwestern edge of Damascus to the Israeli border to be designated a no-fly zone for all Syrian aircraft.

In exchange for these sweeping limitations on its sovereignty, Israel has proposed a gradual withdrawal from all of the territories it has occupied in Syria over the past few months, with one crucial exception: a strategic outpost on the summit of Mount Hermon, a presence that a senior Israeli official stated Israel insists on maintaining in any future agreement.

The Axios report also noted a particularly intriguing element of the proposal: a central principle is the maintenance of an aerial corridor to Iran via Syria, a provision that would allow for potential future Israeli strikes in Iran.

This new phase of detailed security negotiations follows a series of U.S.-brokered meetings that began in earnest after a wave of deadly sectarian violence in the southern Syrian province of Sweida in July.

As previously reported by Kurdistan24, the first of these unprecedented public interactions between Syrian and Israeli officials took place in Paris in late July, where Foreign Minister al-Shaibani and Minister Dermer met to discuss de-escalation.

Those talks were followed by another meeting in Baku in late July and a second in Paris in August.

The quiet diplomacy has been taking place in parallel with a dramatic and public shift in the U.S. approach to the new Syrian government.

In a move that shocked the world and reportedly went against Israeli requests, President Trump announced in a speech in Riyadh on May 14, 2025, that he would lift the crippling U.S. sanctions that had been imposed on the Assad regime.

This was followed by an extraordinary 33-minute meeting between Trump and Syrian President al-Sharaa in Riyadh, the first meeting between a U.S. and Syrian president in 25 years.

During that meeting, which was also attended by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and joined remotely by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump urged al-Sharaa to deport foreign and Palestinian terrorists, help prevent a resurgence of ISIS, and eventually join the Abraham Accords.

The backdrop to these diplomatic maneuvers is a complex and still volatile reality on the ground in Syria, a country still grappling with the aftershocks of a long and brutal civil war and the challenges of a fragile political transition.

The new government under President al-Sharaa, himself a former jihadist commander with past ties to al-Qaeda, has struggled to win the trust of the country's diverse minority communities and has faced accusations of committing its own atrocities.

As the high-level talks are set to resume in London, the Israeli proposal represents a bold and ambitious attempt to forge a new and lasting security order on a border that has been a flashpoint for regional conflict for over half a century.

While sources familiar with the talks told Axios that they are showing progress, they also cautioned that no final agreement appears to be imminent.

The stakes, however, could not be higher, as a successful deal would not only redefine the Israeli-Syrian relationship but could also pave the way for a potential and historic meeting between Netanyahu and al-Sharaa on the world stage at the UN General Assembly later this month.