JERUSALEM, Israel – From Syria to Lebanon and Gaza, several major developments are changing the landscape of the Middle East, and the nation of Israel stands at the epicenter of the region's shifting sands.
Within the past few days, Islamist rebel forces launched a major offensive against the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad. They now control Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city.
Analyst Jonathan Spyer, a Syria expert from the Middle East Forum told CBN News, "This is unprecedented for the rebellion. The rebellion never held all of Aleppo, and it was expelled from all of Aleppo because it held the eastern part of the city for a while in 2016."
Over the weekend, the rebel forces continued their advance further south.
"The regime's continued existence is not yet in danger," Spyer explained. "But nevertheless, this must surely be a major blow to the Assad regime, which has kind of gotten used to regarding itself and being regarded as the de facto legitimate government of Syria."
He added, "Give or take a few areas outside of its control and indeed, I would say to the larger regional alliance of which the Assad regime forms a part, namely, that regional alliance headed by the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the current Syrian situation while visiting new recruits to the Israel Defense Forces. "We are constantly following what is happening in Syria. We are determined to defend the interests of the State of Israel and to protect the achievements of the war," Netanyahu stated.
Concerning Israel's position in the Syrian upheaval, Spyer stated, "As of now, I would say there are not major implications for Israel because all of this, of course, is taking place in northwest Syria, which is an appreciable amount of distance away from the Golan Heights and Syria's border with Israel."
Spyer cautioned, "But should the uprising renew itself on a broader scale, and should the unrest come down and reach the border areas and there are some hints of instability there, then that would come to be of direct relevance to Israel, and Israel would have to be thinking and looking very carefully at who is this new power that's coming into being close to the border. But we're not quite there yet."
Meanwhile, a somewhat shaky ceasefire is holding in Lebanon. That takes Hamas's strongest ally, Hezbollah, out of the war with Israel for now, putting pressure on the isolated Hamas terror group to make a ceasefire deal in Gaza.
U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan remarked, "One of their main partners in crime here, Hezbollah, has now cut a ceasefire deal, and they thought that Hezbollah would be with them till the end."
Sullivan claims that Hamas, Israel, and the intermediaries are all negotiating again. Speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, he said, "Our hope is that we can generate a ceasefire and hostage deal."
The IDF announced Monday that Israel-American Omer Neutra, a New York native taken hostage on October 7th, is presumed dead.
Neutra's death follows the gut-wrenching video released by Hamas over the weekend of another Israeli-American hostage, Edan Alexander, who pleaded directly with President-elect Donald Trump.
Under Hamas's duress, Alexander asked Trump to, "Use your influence and the full power of the United States to negotiate for our freedom. Every day here feels like an eternity and the pain from inside grows from day to day."
At a rally to free the hostages, Alexander's mother Yael told the crowd she spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She said, "He reassured me and promised that now, after reaching an arrangement in Lebanon, conditions are right to free you all and bring you home."
Israeli President Isaac Herzog, in a meeting with Mrs. Alexander, told her, "Now is the time to finalize the deal, now we have to reach a deal and to bring them home."
Top Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Axios he let the Israelis know Trump wants a Gaza ceasefire deal before his inauguration.
"Trump is focused on the hostages issue. He wants the killing to stop and the fighting to end," Graham said. "Why not believe this is still possible after October 7th? Failure is a horrible option for everybody in this region."
Meanwhile, the Syrian Christians in Aleppo worry they're in grave danger because of the Islamist rebels now in control.
Spyer noted, "There is some cause for legitimate concern here because, in the past, when we've seen HTS (the Islamist insurgent group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham) and its predecessor organizations Al Nusra, which was at one time the franchise of al-Qaida in Syria – well, we've seen them take over areas in the past where Christians live. Christians have been treated badly up to and including forced conversions to Islam and other acts of that nature. So, nothing terrible has happened yet. But certainly, we should be watching carefully because this is an area of legitimate concern."
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