Fall of the Assad Regime

On 27 November 2024, the day the Israel–Hezbollah ceasefire began, Syrian rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham under Abu Mohammad al-Jolani (Ahmed al-Sharaa) launched an offensive from Idlib. Aleppo fell within days, then Hama and Homs, and on 8 December 2024 rebels entered Damascus as Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow, ending 54 years of Assad family rule that began with Hafez al-Assad's coup in 1970. Al-Sharaa became Syria's interim president in January 2025.

Israel moved quickly: troops entered the buffer zone set by the 1974 disengagement agreement and took the Syrian peak of Mount Hermon, and within days air strikes destroyed most of the former regime's warplanes, navy, missile stocks and chemical-weapons sites. Iran lost its land corridor to Hezbollah. In 2025 Israel struck government forces to protect the Druze of Sweida while also opening direct security talks with Damascus, and the Mossad brought home thousands of documents and belongings of the spy Eli Cohen, hanged in Damascus in 1965.