With the Israeli Army Advancing into Syria
Following Assad’s Fall, a Group Promoting
Settlements in Lebanon Casts its Gaze Eastward
Illy Pe’ery / +972 Magazine

(December 12, 2024) — Within hours of the fall of the Assad regime, Israeli forces were already pushing into Syrian territory, conquering the Syrian side of Mount Hermon/Jabal A-Shaykh and the buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that has been in place for more than half a century. But the army were not the only ones quick to react; so, too, was the Israeli settler movement.

“We have to conquer and destroy. As much as possible, and as quickly as possible,” wrote one member of Uri Tsafon — a group founded earlier this year to promote Israeli settlement of southern Lebanon — in the organization’s WhatsApp group. “We need to check according to the new laws in Syria whether Israelis are allowed to invest in real estate and start buying land there,” another member wrote. In another settler WhatsApp group, members shared maps of Syria and tried to identify potential areas for settlement.

The Nachala movement — led by Daniella Weiss, who has been spearheading efforts in recent months to resettle Gaza — expressed a similar sentiment in a post on Facebook: “Whoever still thinks it’s possible to leave our fate in the hands of a foreign actor — forsakes Israel’s security!” it said. “Jewish settlement is the only thing that will bring about regional stability and security for the State of Israel, along with a stable economy, national resilience, and deterrence.

“In Gaza, in Lebanon, in the entire Golan Heights including the ‘Syrian Plateau,’ and in the entire Mount Hermon,” it added — attaching a biblical map titled “Abraham’s Borders,” in which Israel’s territory includes the entirety of Lebanon as well as most of Syria and Iraq.

This is not mere talk; these groups mean business. Nachala has already mapped out where it plans to build new Jewish settlements across the Gaza Strip, and claims that more than 700 families have committed to move when the opportunity arises (Daniella Weiss herself has already been into Gaza with a military escort to scout out potential locations). And last week, Uri Tsafon, which has bided its time over the past year, made its first attempt at a land grab in southern Lebanon — where Israeli soldiers are still present following the ceasefire deal.

Map showing the approximate locations of Israel’s military expansion into Lebanon and Syria, with darker blue indicating the most recent advances, created using data from satellite imagery, geolocation, and Israeli military statements. (Ahmad Baydoun)

On Dec. 5, the group’s founder, Amos Azaria, who is a computer science professor at Ariel University in the occupied West Bank, crossed the border into Lebanon along with six families in an attempt to establish an outpost. They reached the area of Maroun A-Ras, around two kilometers into Lebanese territory, and planted cedar trees in memory of an Israeli soldier who fell in battle in Lebanon two months ago.

Several hours passed before the Israeli army evicted them and forced them back into Israel. (In response to The Hottest Place in Hell’s request for comment on this incident, the Israeli police said that according to the army, no Israeli civilians had crossed into Lebanon.)

Even back in June, at Uri Tsafon’s “First Lebanon Conference,” held on Zoom, members were already talking about settling Syria. Dr. Hagi Ben Artzi, Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother-in-law and a member of the group, told attendees that Israel’s borders should be those promised to the Jewish people in biblical times: “We don’t want even one meter beyond the Euphrates River. We are humble. [But] what we were promised, we must conquer.”

And with the fall of the Assad regime and the advance of Israeli troops into Syrian territory, they were eager to seize the opportunity. “We called on the government to capture as much as possible of what was Syrian territory,” Azaria told the Israeli magazine The Hottest Place in Hell. “The rebels are exactly [the same as] Hamas. Maybe now they’re making nice noises, but ultimately they are Sunnis who will find the common enemy, which is us. We need to do as much as possible now, while it’s possible.”

On Dec. 11, a small group of Israeli settlers claimed to have crossed into an area of Syrian territory now under Israeli military control, where they filmed themselves praying. When asked about the incident, the Israeli army said that it “there is no known crossing of the border by the people in question,” and that the video is “being examined by the relevant authorities.”

‘The most important thing is to be on the other side of the fence’

Uri Tsafon takes its name from a biblical verse calling to “Awaken, O north.” Its website describes Lebanon as “a state that does not really exist or function,” and claims that the true expanse of Israel’s northern Galilee stretches as far north as Lebanon’s Litani River — which Israeli forces had reached just as the recent ceasefire agreement came into effect, having forcibly displaced tens of thousands of residents of southern Lebanese villages in the process.

“We [started off with] quieter activities,” Azaria told The Hottest Place in Hell. “We called on the government and the army to go to war in the north … [and] we drove to Mount Meron under the air force base and did reconnaissance toward Lebanon.”

But last week’s attempt to establish an outpost in southern Lebanon marked the group’s entry into a new phase of activity that aims to force the government’s hand. “The goal was and still is to establish a settlement in Lebanon,” Azaria said. “We are not waiting for the state to tell us, ‘Come’ — we are working to make it happen.”

According to Azaria, the movement already boasts thousands of members “who are very eager and interested” in its activities. Last week’s action was not advertised in advance, because “[the army] would have blocked us and not allowed us to enter.” And they certainly didn’t face much resistance: “The gate was open and we just drove in,” he said.

Azaria isn’t worried that they didn’t succeed; in fact, he sees their eviction as the first step in a longer-term plan of action that has characterized the settler movement since its inception more than half a century ago.

“The first time we’re evicted, we go,” he explained. “The second time, we stay longer. The [third] time, we stay the night. That’s how we’ll continue until there is a settlement. At first, [the army] demolishes it, and then they reach an agreement that there will be one settlement, and that’s it. In the meantime, we start working on the next settlement. It may not be realistic that the state will build a settlement [of its own accord], but that doesn’t mean the state has to demolish a community that we built.

“In the first stage, we’ll settle where we can,” he continued. “There’s no interest in a specific location; the most important thing is to be on the other side of the fence. We have to fight the taboo of the border that was established by France and England 100 years ago. We will live on the Lebanese border, God willing, and if we are there, the border will move north and the army will guard it.

“Just as the army is fighting in both Gaza and the north, it’s the same with settlements: we have to settle everywhere,” Azaria went on. “In Gaza, there is Nachala and several other bodies [promoting settlement]. In the north, we are the only movement that really deals with this right now. Nachala does it more with permits. We operate in a more ‘spearhead’ manner.”

And Azaria is confident that support will come from the political echelon. “When I founded [Uri Tsafon], people didn’t talk about settling southern Lebanon at all,” he explained. “We’re changing the discourse. We’re in contact with Knesset members. I assume that just as it took time for them to agree to talk about settlement in Gaza, it will also take time to start talking about settlement in Lebanon. [Likud MK] Ariel Kallner mentioned something. [So did Otzma Yehudit MK] Limor Son Har-Melech. Slowly, more and more people dare to talk about it.”

A version of this article first appeared in Hebrew on The Hottest Place in Hell. Read it here.