Talk:Israel's role in the Syrian civil war

Move to Israeli involvement in the Syrian Civil War

 * Per deletion discussion... Article needs to be moved to "involvement" as it is more POV neutral. Thanks. Ism schism (talk) 22:31, 5 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The airstrikes happened before the civil war and may continue after. They have nothing to do with supporting either side, or at least it wasn't proved. I doubt it belongs in a page with such title. It can go into another page and be linked to this page. Ashtul (talk) 02:30, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Meanwhile, move to involvement as Ism schism suggested. Ashtul (talk) 02:35, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Synthesis in this article
Looks like this article is entirely based on synthesis of three distinct topics - Humanitarian aid during the Syrian Civil War (which Israel admits doing, but this is not an involvement in the war), Israeli–Syrian ceasefire line incidents during the Syrian Civil War (also affirmed incidents by Israel and/or Syria or its allied militias, but being a Spillover of the Syrian Civil War and not involvement and finally an unrelated collection of incidents related to sporadic air / ground attacks, some of whom may have been made by Israel, but never specifically linked to it, and even if so - suspected as attacks linked to Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian Civil War. Furthermore, there is in fact a strong consensus that Israel is NOT directly involved in the Syrian Civil War, so writing an article on "involvement" is a violation of that consensus. Finally, the sources in fact say that Israel is not involved in the Syrian war, and the only sources on google saying "Israeli involvement" in the war speak of a hypothetic future involvement and NOT present involvement. For instance:
 * "Potential Israeli involvement in Syria could be far more explosive. The bitter enemies both possess air forces, tanks and significant arsenals of missiles and other weapons." (2012)
 * Israeli Minister of Defense: "...On a strategic level, in other words, we are not intervening on anyone's behalf." (2015)
 * "Druze Attack May Lead to Israeli Involvement in Syria" (2015)

In conclusion, the attempt to present humanitarian aid to Syrians is completely mispresented here, and except a general mention is already well described in Humanitarian aid during the Syrian Civil War. Other sections largely a WP:FORK of Israeli–Syrian ceasefire line incidents during the Syrian Civil War and Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian Civil War, trying to link them into something related. Unless there is a source which links those two topics, this article is redundant.GreyShark (dibra) 09:29, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm removing copy-paste part of the Iran-Israel proxy conflict timeline from the article, keeping only the summary.GreyShark (dibra) 07:57, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Merge
Since no editor has so far offered any explanation to the exact scope of this article, its dubious naming (see above sources - clearly saying that Israel is not involved in the Syrian Civil War so far) and the evident WP:FORK from Israeli–Syrian ceasefire line incidents during the Syrian Civil War, i'm proposing to merge it.GreyShark (dibra) 10:39, 23 August 2015 (UTC) No doubt, intense work on the article is necessary, and controversial edits and outright vandalism by some editors may be unavoidable, but we have to cope with it and present an NPOV account of the extent and form of Israeli involvement in the Syrian Civil War. --PanchoS (talk) 09:37, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ with no objections.GreyShark (dibra) 05:34, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I object to your deletion and restored the article. The rationale for turning the article into a redirect is invalid, as the article doesn't merely FORK other articles such as Israeli–Syrian ceasefire line incidents during the Syrian Civil War. Also, while you claimed to merge the articles, this didn't happen. But mainly, by now, it seems established that to some extent Israel became involved.
 * Original research and WP:UNDUE - Israeli role in Syrian civil war is merely border clashes and conspiracy theories. All of the information here is a podium for synthesis. Some people are really interested to present Israel as some important actor in this war, but there is a clear consensus of editors that this is not the case. See Talk:Syrian Civil War/Israel.GreyShark (dibra) 18:03, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Undue tags
I think tags placed in 2015 (July-Aug) have lost their due importance, thus need to be removed. Nannadeem (talk) 19:09, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Inside Syrian territory
, you need to stop distorting facts to fit your POV pushing. You said "Israeli announcement didn't say that they attacked in Syrian territory".

This is false. The Guardian source says that:

''The incident was highly unusual in that it also saw the Israeli military break its customary silence over raids in Syria to release a statement to admit that its aircraft had been targeted while operating there. “Overnight, March 17, IAF aircrafts [sic] targeted several targets in Syria,” said the statement. “Several anti-aircraft missiles were launched from Syria following the mission and the IDF aerial defence systems intercepted one of the missiles. At no point was the safety of Israeli civilians or the IAF aircraft compromised.”''

So the operations inside Syrian territory were confirmed by the official Israeli statement. --Pudeo (talk) 16:37, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
 * You are correct - the IDF spokesman said IAF aircraft targeted something in "Syrian territory" without disclosing exact location, but Ba'athist Syrian Arab Army claimed that the attack targeted Palmyra region. IDF has never acknowledged what exactly they attacked and where, with media speculating about Hezbollah convoys, but neither Hezbollah nor Assad's forces said that. The incident was on Golan Heights which by the way is also part of the Syrian territory (depends which Syria, but ok). This was not the first time Israel and Ba'athist Syrian Army exchanged fire on Golan Heights or used airforce (just to remind you September 2016 incident, which was practically identical). So what is the point of yours?GreyShark (dibra) 13:09, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Catch 22: inside Syrian territory, the Golan Heights, except it's not Syrian territory (which should be the Israeli position). Some mental acrobatics, but if they said "inside Syrian territory" what's the problem even if it could have been just in the Golan Heights - it's still involvement in the Syrian Civil War. --Pudeo (talk) 23:42, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It has been systematically rejected to include Israel as a party in Syrian Civil War - see talk:Syrian Civil War/Israel. On the contrary, it seems that there is a constant attempt to pretend that Israel is involved in all regional conflicts.GreyShark (dibra) 17:49, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Better naming
With Israel excluded from belligerents of Syrian War in talk:Syrian Civil War/Israel (per WP:UNDUE and WP:NOTABLE policies) and never confirming direct participation in Syrian conflict, naming this article "involvement" is a very bad misinterpretation of sources which actually mostly claim that "Israel has not yet been involved". What we can certainly say is that Israel has been involved in border incidents (which we already have an spillover incidents article for) and that there are claims that several incidents during the Syrian Civil War have to do with the Iran-Israel proxy conflict. I herewith ask opinions concerning better naming for this article - with Iran-Israel proxy conflict during the Syrian Civil War being one possible solution and if so - it will allow us to split here much content from the Iran-Israel proxy conflict article.GreyShark (dibra) 18:00, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 27 April 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved.The oppose-argument put forward by the lone participant seems solid. (non-admin closure)   Winged Blades Godric  09:02, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Israeli involvement in the Syrian Civil War → Iran–Israel proxy conflict during the Syrian Civil War – Per above rationale that Israel has in fact refrained from direct participation/involvement in the conflict and there is a long-standing consensus not to list Israel as a party in the war per WP:WEIGHT, WP:EXCEPTIONAL and WP:NOTABILITY. Some issues of the Syrian conflict are linked with Israel - notably including the limited spillover cross-border incidents (spillover is not involvement) occasionally taking place. Furthermore, sometimes there are allegations over mostly non-confirmed claims regarding attacks on Hezbollah and Iranian targets in the region, indirectly linked with the Syrian conflict - which this article is dealing with.

This article is clearly emphasizing allegations on possible Israeli attacks against Hezbollah and Iran in the region, which may have occurred in Syrian territories or Lebanon (IDF refused to comment on location of targets, though one time accused Hezbollah on 2015 attack from Lebanon and once admitted on attacking Hezbollah in 2017). In any case - this is being much less WP:WEIGHT than the actually involved parties in the Syrian War. Finally, many sources speaking of "Israeli involvement" in Syrian conflict in fact refer either to a possible future scenario which is essentially WP:CRYSTALBALL (see Israel Drawn Into Syrian War by Islamist Threat to Druze (2015) "Israeli army chief Gadi Eisenkot told a parliamentary panel Tuesday that the military would act if needed to prevent a massacre of Druze on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights") or referring to Israeli diplomatic efforts in this regard (see Remaking Syria: A Military Update, the Diplomatic Situation, and the Israeli Angle (March 2017) "Israel, which has largely been distanced from the Syrian quagmire, senses its lack of influence over arrangements currently underway in Moscow, Tehran, Ankara, Astana, and Geneva. "). GreyShark (dibra) 07:42, 27 April 2017 (UTC) --Relisting. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 16:48, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose. That the Israeli involvment is part of a proxy-war with Iran, is
 * I) just one narrative or way of interpreation
 * II) does not exclude that involvement can be defined in other terms.
 * Therefore the article should stick to the facts ("involvement") rather than any the more interpretative deeper motives ("proxy-war"). For the article title it does not matter what state or violent actors claim what the conflict is about. Dentren  |  Ta lk  13:33, 27 April 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Keep one of the articles
I don't quite understand the argument against the existence of (one of) these articles. Yes, the recent bombings could be covered by the page on the Israeli-Syrian ceasefire incidents, but what about the support of rebels in Golan Heights, outlined by numerous reputable sources, ie. http://www.newsweek.com/israel-secretly-paying-salaries-syrian-rebels-golan-heights-627155 Oscar666kta420swag (talk) 06:27, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Humanitarian aid during the Syrian Civil War - the only verified support is strictly humanitarian including food, medicine, fuel for water pumps and minor financial relief to the population in rebel-held areas in South-Eastern Golan and in regime-held Hader.GreyShark (dibra) 14:37, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
 * "strictly humanitarian"?? Lol. What part of "Paying salaries for Syrian rebels" did you not understand? Who do you think you are fooling?  Seriously, Hasbara used to be better than this......
 * And it has been reported for years... see eg. this:
 * http://www.newsweek.com/2015/07/03/israel-secret-war-syria-nusra-druze-344433.html
 * where most of that "strictly humanitarian medical aid" strangely went to young military aged men. Coincidence, yeah sure.....Lol. Huldra (talk) 21:24, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Israeli involvement in the Syrian Civil War
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Israeli involvement in the Syrian Civil War's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Hezbollah": From Palmyra offensive (March 2016):  From Palmyra offensive (December 2016):  From Rif Dimashq offensive (March–August 2013):  From Iran–Israel proxy conflict:  From March 2017 Israel–Syria incident:  From Quneitra offensive (September 2016):  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 09:35, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Israeli involvement in the Syrian Civil War. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150927040759/http://www.i24news.tv/en/opinion/69927-150504-analysis-is-israel-really-not-involved-in-the-syrian-war to http://www.i24news.tv/en/opinion/69927-150504-analysis-is-israel-really-not-involved-in-the-syrian-war

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Requested move 4 January 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: No consensus, ❌ Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ Talk 20:23, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Israeli involvement in the Syrian Civil War → Israel's role in the Syrian Civil War – To fit the content of the lead section and as followup to previous discussions at Talk:Syrian Civil War/Israel and RfC at talk:Foreign involvement in the Syrian Civil War. It seems that an article on Israeli role in the Syrian Civil War is seen by many editors as an overview of Israeli humanitarian aid, sporadic cross-border incidents and alleged incidents involving Iran and Hezbollah; however, it is not a notable active belligerency yet, but rather a complex role, similar to the role of the Republic of Lebanon. Hence propose to rename this article to Israel's role in the Syrian Civil War to match Lebanon's role in the Syrian Civil War.GreyShark (dibra) 07:04, 4 January 2018 (UTC) --Relisting.  samee  talk 08:44, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Looks we are being forced into retreading the same issue over and over again. The article is not called ″Israeli military intervention″: ″involvement″ does not per se imply military action. That said, major military strikes did happen at least three times last year, and were acknowledged by Israeli government. What is all this discussion about then? Besides, ″Foreign involvement in the Syrian Civil War″ is an umbrella header for the whole topic.Axxxion (talk) 15:33, 4 January 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Israel Evacuates 800 Members of White Helmets Rescue Organization to Jordan

 * Sokuya (talk) 09:22, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

September 17, 2018, loss of Russian IL-20
The current editing on Israel attack in Latakia and related loss of the IL-20 does not include Israel's view. This should be added:
 * On September 20 in Moscow an Israel Air Force delegation presented to Russia Air Force command Israel's inquiry on the bombing of an Iranian-Hezbollah advanced weapons transfer site in Latakia and the related loss of the IL-20. The IDF stated that their planes were already landing in Israel when Syrian antiaircraft missiles shot down the Russian IL-20.

For neutral point of view policy Israel's claims on the identity of the targeted site and the timing of the Syrian shooting of the Russian military aircraft should be included.-Yohananw (talk) 20:50, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
When mentioning casualty numbers released by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (a one man run organisation with no neutrality) the article should not say "the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said" but "the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed".

HegelLife (talk) 07:54, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
 * See WP:CLAIM. We generally use say. The reader may judge the reliability of the source by looking at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights article. (and I'll note that in many cases - we simply don't have other estimates or other estimates are worse - this is an "all bad sources" situation).Icewhiz (talk) 08:34, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

On the "Commanders and leaders" list
Requesting for two things to be edited:

1. Replace Avigdor Lieberman and Gadi Eizenkot with Naftali Bennett and Aviv Kochavi (current Minister of Defense and IDF Chief of Staff), respectively.

2. Put a after Qasem Soleimani's name. Planettolex (talk) 04:03, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The box moved to Iran–Israel conflict during the Syrian Civil War.GreyShark (dibra) 08:07, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 24 August 2020
<div class="boilerplate" style="background-color: #efe; margin: 0; padding: 0 10px 0 10px; border: 1px dotted #aaa;">
 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Weak consensus to move to Israel's role in the Syrian Civil War. Relisted several times, but still with insufficient input, so I'll defer to the reasonable request (noting IJBall's reasonable objection). No such user (talk) 11:12, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Israeli involvement in the Syrian Civil War → Israel's role in the Syrian Civil War – Propose to rename this article to Israel's role in the Syrian Civil War to match Lebanon's role in the Syrian Civil War, as both were officially neutral in the conflict though both did execute military actions against specific Syrian factions on various occasions, while mostly engaging in humanitarian assistance. This RM proposal is a follwup to January 2018 proposal, which had failed to get sufficient discussion at the time. GreyShark (dibra) 20:02, 24 August 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. —usernamekiran (talk) 23:05, 31 August 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. Jerm (talk) 03:46, 12 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Support per nomination. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 15:17, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Counterpoint – I think it might actually be better of the other article was moved to Lebanese involvement in the Syrian Civil War. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:41, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Up to this point neither Lebanon nor Israel have been included in the belligerent section of the Syrian Civil War, because they had not been supporting any specific side in the Syrian War, but rather had their own limited agenda (anti-terror border operations by Lebanon and attacking opposition targets, anti-terror border operations by Israel and bombing of Iranian/Hezbollah targets). We have three levels - role, involvement and intervention. Certainly intervention is not the case here, regarding role vs involvement - let's hear more opinions.GreyShark (dibra) 11:05, 7 September 2020 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. <b style="color: #FF0000;">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Support for Nusra and operation Timber Sycamore
Could these be added? GrandBotBoi (talk) 05:56, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Neutrality paradox
Reportedly strictly neutral, but Israel also orders strikes. I feel like the first sentence of the article can be scrapped. Tomaatje12 (talk) 16:59, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 16 August 2022
I would like to add to the article an estimate by Airwars of civilian deaths caused by Israeli airstrikes in Syria since 2013 using the source below:

https://airwars.org/conflict/israeli-military-in-syria-the-gaza-strip/

Other articles on interventions in Syria have Airwars estimates of civilian deaths, so I thought this should include one, too.

For example, we could add, in whatever section: By August 2022, Airwars estimated that 17-45 civilians were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Syria since 2013, including 2-3 children, 2 women, and 15 named victims. Another 42-101 civilians were wounded in IDF strikes.

I have used the above template on other articles. I think it would qualitatively improve the article, as it has for the articles about the Russian, America, and Turkish campaigns in Syria. 2601:85:C101:C9D0:B532:8FDB:8C6D:90E6 (talk) 21:34, 16 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Pictogram voting wait blue.svg In progress: An editor is implementing the requested edit. Looks like Russian involvement in the Syrian civil war has this fact in the lead, Turkish involvement in the Syrian civil war has it under the "Allegations of war crimes" heading, and US info is available at . I don't see a great section heading where this really "fits" so I'm going to try and work it into the lead. --N8wilson 🔔 00:52, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ in this edit. --N8wilson 🔔 01:02, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you! 2601:85:C101:C9D0:832:3C54:56A4:1F01 (talk) 21:12, 20 September 2022 (UTC)