'I thought Gaza, Lebanon, Jenin were exciting – then I went to Syria'

Unlike Gaza and Lebanon, Syria had a full-fledged army with tanks, aircraft, and chemical weapons, and a well-guarded dangerous border.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB DECEMBER 28, 2024 11:06

AT THE Tel Kudne base in southern Syria: Circular trench, dank bunker, abandoned structures, garbage. (photo credit: YONAH JEREMY BOB)

On the evening of December 10, I received a stunning notification. The IDF was offering me and a small number of other military journalists the opportunity to visit Syrian territory. More specifically, the invitation was to visit Tel Kudne, a Syrian military army base the IDF had fought an intense battle over during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

I had to look up Tel Kudne on the map, being more familiar with the Israeli and Syrian sides of Mount Hermon, and noted that it was a two-and-a-half hour drive north from home, a shorter distance than traveling to the Hermon, which can sometimes take over three hours each way.

The offer was surreal because only two months earlier, I had visited Lebanon and when I returned, various friends had joked that Syria would be next for me – and I, of course, had told them they were crazy. Unlike Gaza and Lebanon, Syria had a full-fledged army with tanks, aircraft, and chemical weapons, and a well-guarded dangerous border.

The following morning, I set off with my bulletproof vest, combat helmet, ear plugs (soldiers use them in deafeningly loud armored personnel carriers, but they do not have extras for journalists), and other items I was used to bringing along on trips to Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.

I arrived early in the morning at the meeting point in Alonei Habashan, slightly east of the Gamla National Park and Katzrin in the Golan.

Pages from an abandoned Syrian army booklets left by Bashar al-Assad's fleeing forces, photos taken in December 2024. (credit: SHUTTERSTOCK, YONAH JEREMY BOB)

The Sandcat Tigris armored cars we were driven in were not nearly as large nor as loud as the Namer vehicles I was used to when being shepherded around Gaza.

The shmoozing in the vehicle among the journalists (some five to a car, with three cars of journalists plus soldiers-only guard cars) and our driver and another combat fighter was pretty typical.

Although our soldiers were at first somewhat hesitant about journalists and concerned that we might make trouble for them, slowly but surely as we shared personal and non-political anecdotes and recounted our junkets into Gaza and Lebanon, they opened up about some of their travels and military experiences.

Most importantly for me, they mentioned that IDF Brig.-Gen. Yair Palai, the commander of the forces who had taken over Tel Kudne and some other areas, had seven children (later, it turned out he “only” has six), which was a good starting point for a conversation he and I would have later on.

It only took around 10 minutes to cross from Alonei Habashan into Syria.

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Quickly, we saw not only pockets of Israeli soldiers but also UN posts – with meager forces, though, and not much of a footprint.

First steps into Syria

As we crossed into Syria, very little looked different.

The topography was identical: mostly green and brown rocky plains with sporadic mountains in the distance; and other than crossing through a large fenced area with our driver pointing out that it was the border, we might not have even known we were in enemy territory.

Furthermore, the pure and tranquil mountain air was the same as on the Israeli side of the Golan.

It took another 10 minutes of a slow winding drive on the bumpy road to arrive at the Tel Kudne village for us to see clear indications of being in Syria.

Entering the village, there was no sign of the destruction or fighting that one sees in Gaza and Lebanon.

All the villagers’ houses, trees, and other vegetation were still in place, even if the village did appear mostly deserted in terms of people.

We only saw a very small number of Syrian civilians a couple of hours later, when we were walking through the village on our way back.

The houses were old and shabby, and the village as a whole was not in a particularly good condition. But that had nothing to do with the presence of the IDF in the area.

With standard utility poles and machinery appearing to be in fine working order throughout, other signs of destruction, such as the blown-up water and utilities infrastructure seen in Gaza and Lebanon, were not an issue here.

IDF sources said that they have had clear and good communications with the village leaders since the start of the invasion and had been able to assure those villagers who did not flee that the IDF would not intervene in their affairs.

Israeli military officials were still extremely circumspect about what details they would share from their meetings with Syrians, due to the sensitivities and inherent instability of the situation.

Atop Tel Kudne

At the Syrian base on top of the small mountain of Tel Kudne, I was struck at first by the easy simultaneous views into Israel and deeper into Syria.

I noticed that it was not only Tel Kudne that seemed quiet and abandoned, though unharmed, but also a few other villages such as Jaba – essentially the entire area inside Syria that we could see from the top.

There were hundreds of small, mostly white, flat-roofed houses below, with an occasional multi-floor mosque and an occasional larger, but still single-floor, barn or commercial-looking building in the mix.

There was only a small number of winding roads connecting the patches of villages in the distance, with many residences appearing only accessible by a small and narrow dirt path.

Turning into the base itself, at first I centered on the small number of buildings there. The largest building was only one floor high, though some 20 meters wide. It had an antenna perched on top and green moss was overflowing from parts of the roof, seeming to almost seep into a tree leaning into the right side of the structure. There were some birds in the tree that did not seem to care which army’s soldiers resided in the base, as long as they left behind some open cans of tuna and other items, which it appeared that both armies did.

Among scattered heaps of garbage spaced out across the mountain, I found several Syrian army manuals mixed in with the food remains, and a few books for learning French.

A smaller building that had once been painted red, white, and black with green stars was overwritten with the words “trash area” spray painted in Hebrew.

The entire circumference of the mountain was surrounded by a two-meter-high trench that had specific entry points with ramps at strategic sites on the mountain.

The circular trench went on for likely a few hundred meters or more if you followed it all the way around. It had less garbage than other areas, though some of the sniper lookout points had a good deal of garbage next to where the Syrian soldiers likely used to be perched. Even the more enclosed lookout points that had roofs had plenty of light.

There was also a dark and dank underground bunker with a dozen or so stairs leading into it. It was unclear what the purpose of the bunker was, though it did seem to potentially provide some protection from limited shelling or airstrikes.

Mostly, the base appeared to exemplify the beat-up and worn-down Syrian army, which reports say had become an underpaid conscript-filled house of cards by the time the Syrian rebels began their final push at the end of November.

Euphoria and shock

In contrast to the Syrian army, the IDF forces projected unprecedented confidence, having taken over areas easily and without firing a shot – areas which they had been told for decades were profoundly dangerous.

There was a mixture of euphoria and shock among the IDF. Officers and soldiers believed they could do whatever they wanted in Syrian territory and were making all kinds of plans to resist any potential threat from the new Syrian regime. But they still seemed to live in a parallel universe of disbelief that the old Syrian regime had dissolved without a fight.

I found myself disoriented, remembering conversations with Israeli F-35 fighter pilots less than two years earlier, discussing the serious dangers and challenges of flying through Syrian airspace, which wielded significant anti-aircraft defenses, as opposed to over Gaza.

I had watched the Assad regime appear to be utterly defeated around a decade earlier, only to rise from its ashes and push the Syrian rebels back into obscurity with the help of Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia.

And then, as I looked over the Syrian countryside, I realized that what was important was not only that there were no Syrian soldiers but also that there were no military personnel from Tehran, Beirut, or Moscow. In fact, the latter was possibly the most important, as Russia had propped up the Assad regime.

Back to Israel

We took a detour on our return to Israel to see, up close, the new several-meter-deep trenches that the army is plowing along the border with Syria (a bit into Syrian territory).

It is these trenches that will likely remain the most significant physical element Israel will leave behind in Syria whenever it decides that the IDF must withdraw.

As we drove back into Israeli territory, I marveled at the extraordinary picture of an Israeli-American from Baltimore setting down footprints in Syria at the conclusion of a 15-month period which has continued to evolve, shock, and surprise us all. 