Sources say Dermer raised ‘humanitarian corridor’ to Sweida during talk with Syrian FM, talks to continue

Syria’s foreign minister met Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer in Paris yesterday to discuss security arrangements in southern Syria, two Syrian sources familiar with the meeting say.

Syrian and Israeli officials have been conducting US-mediated talks on de-escalating the conflict in southern Syria. A previous round of these talks was held in Paris in late July but ended without a final accord.

In a rare acknowledgement, Syrian state news agency SANA said last night that Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani met with an Israeli delegation, but did not mention Dermer. Hebrew media outlets reported yesterday that Dermer was to attend the meeting.

The agency said the discussions focused on de-escalation, non-interference in Syrian domestic affairs, and reactivating a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a UN buffer zone in the Golan Heights.

There has been no public comment by the Israeli government on the meeting.

A Syrian security source familiar with the meeting says Shaibani and Dermer met for several hours, along with their respective teams.

The source says Shaibani emphasized that Israel’s ongoing interventions in southern Syria, including incursions into the provinces of Quneitra and Daraa, risk further destabilizing the region.

The two sides agreed to continue talks focused on security coordination in southern Syria, the source says.

Another Syrian source familiar with the meeting says Israel has again raised establishing a “humanitarian corridor” to send aid directly into Sweida, a Druze-majority province in Syria’s south that saw days of sectarian violence last month.

Syria has previously rejected this idea, but Israel raised it again, the source says.

Hundreds of people were reported killed in the clashes in Sweida province between Druze fighters, Sunni Bedouin tribes and government forces. Israel intervened with airstrikes to prevent what it said were mass killings of Druze by government forces.

The clashes last month underlined the challenges interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa faces in stabilizing Syria and maintaining centralized rule, despite warming ties with the US and his administration’s evolving security contacts with Israel.