Israel will not tolerate any Islamic factions that support Hamas.

Under decades of conflict, Israel has shown little regard for implementing agreements, even those related to UN resolutions. Israel considers its security to override any agreements or laws.

In fact, Israel views its very presence as under threat from the Islamic factions surrounding it.

Before the October 7 incident—when Hamas kidnapped and killed dozens of Israelis—the dilemmas of Gaza and Hezbollah’s presence in southern Lebanon loomed large. The Gaza and Hezbollah fronts in southern Lebanon were restless, as these factions posed constant threats to Israel.

In Syria, the Assad regime had long embraced groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC; Arabic: الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين – القيادة العامة, romanized: al-Jabhah al-Shaʻbīyah li-Taḥrīr Filasṭīn – al-Qiyādah al-ʻĀmmah), a Palestinian nationalist militant organization based in Syria. For some period, it also sheltered Hamas.

Now on the scene is Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a coalition of Islamic factions that serves as the military wing of Al-Qaeda.

HTS has replaced the Assad regime and is now embracing factions linked to Hamas in exchange for funding from Qatar.

The questions that must be answered are:

Is Ahmed al-Sharaa risking the destruction of Syria, as happened in southern Lebanon, Beirut, and Gaza?

If Ahmed al-Sharaa (formerly Abu Mohammad al-Julani), now Syria’s interim president and leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), explicitly rejects the transnational jihadist imperative to “liberate القدس Jerusalem”. (a core Salafi-jihadist rallying cry tied to anti-Israel militancy), would the hardline factions within HTS—still ideologically linked to al-Qaeda’s global vision—back him?

There are several answers to these questions, but all of them are linked to regional agendas.

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