Israel provided arms and funds to at least 12 of the rebel groups in southern Syria who were fighting against Iran-backed forces and Islamic State terrorists, Foreign Policy magazine reported Thursday.
The magazine reported that the weapons and vehicles supplied by Israel were transported into Syria through three gates in the Golan Heights border fence.
Quoting members of rebel groups and Syrian journalists who said that Israeli aid also came in the form of hard cash, the report said the Israeli government paid each rebel fighter a stipend of $75 per month, in addition to providing money for the rebels to procure weapons on the black market.
For years, Israel has been worried by the prospect of Iran or Iranian allies gaining a foothold on the Syrian Golan Heights, which would threaten Israel's northern border.
In late July, Syrian rebels agreed to surrender their last pockets of control in southwest Quneitra province, making way for the Syrian regime to re-establish its authority on the Israeli border.
The deal, confirmed in its general outlines by a monitoring group and opposition activists in Quneitra, will put the Syrian government face-to-face with Israel along most of the border for the first time since the Syrian war broke out in 2011.
The assistance Israel provided the rebels reportedly led them to believe that Israel would attack Syrian army forces if they tried to advance in southern Syria. However, although the Syrian forces did advance there recently, Israel took no action, leaving the rebels disappointed.
This was not the first report saying that Israel provided aid to the rebel forces in Syria. In late July, Syrian news outlets reported on the downing of a Syrian fighter jet over the Golan Heights and suggested that the Israeli Air Force had shot it down to help the rebels. A government official told Syria's state-run news agencies that "the Zionist enemy attacked and hit our plane in the Yarmouk Valley area."
A Syrian military official said, "The Israeli enemy showed again that it has adopted the terrorist organizations [the rebel groups]."
This week, Israeli officials said that Israel had weighed up direct military intervention in the Syrian war before Russia joined the conflict in September 2015 in response to Syrian President Bashar Assad's request for help quashing both the rebels seeking to oust him and the jihadist groups active in Syria, including al-Qaida and Islamic State.
