Ahmed al-Sharaa (formerly Abu Mohammad al-Jolani of HTS) and the post-Assad Syrian government have moved away from the old Ba’athist regime’s deliberate maintenance of ambiguity around the Shebaa Farms. This change directly undercuts one of Hezbollah’s core post-2000 justifications for retaining its weapons outside Lebanese state control.
Historical Context
The Shebaa farms is a small, sparsely populated area of roughly 25 km² along the tripoint of Lebanon, Syria, and the Israeli Golan Heights. Israel captured it in 1967 along with the rest of the Golan.
After Israel’s full withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000 (certified by the UN as complete under Resolution 425), Hezbollah and its backers needed a new pretext to continue “resistance.” They asserted that Shebaa was Lebanese territory still under Israeli occupation. The Assad regime in Damascus publicly supported this Lebanese claim (including a key 2000 phone call from Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan), while privately or in other contexts sometimes treating it as Syrian. This created strategic ambiguity that allowed Hezbollah to keep fighting and arming
The UN’s consistent position has been that Shebaa Farms are Syrian territory (part of the Golan occupied in 1967), not Lebanese, and thus not covered by the 2000 Lebanon withdrawal.
Lebanon never formally claimed the area before 2000, and no proper demarcation existed due to French Mandate-era ambiguities.
The Shift Under al-Sharaa
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in late 2024, the new Syrian authorities have:
• Expressed willingness to demarcate the Lebanon-Syria border properly (to control crossings, stop smuggling — including to Hezbollah — and assert sovereignty).
• Avoided repeating the old regime’s automatic endorsement of the Lebanese claim to Shebaa.
• Indicated that border and territorial issues, including Shebaa, will be handled through Syria’s new institutions rather than as a perpetual “resistance” card.
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• In some reporting, positioned or prepared to treat Shebaa as Syrian sovereign territory, aligning more closely with the longstanding UN/international view and historical Syrian administration of the area.
thisisbeirut.com.lb
Reports from mid-2025 (including Israeli and Arab sources) noted Damascus preparing to clarify Shebaa’s Syrian status, in the context of potential security talks with Israel and broader normalization efforts. Lebanese officials have also described the Farms as a disputed issue between Lebanon and Syria, with demarcation deferred.
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Al-Sharaa has been cautious in public statements (e.g., calling it “too early” during the transition phase while meeting Lebanese figures like Walid Jumblatt), but the overall direction is clear: no more weaponization of the ambiguity to sustain Hezbollah’s narrative or Iranian influence via Syria.
Impact on Hezbollah’s Justification
This directly erodes Hezbollah’s 20 year claim that it must keep its massive, independent arsenal because Israel still “occupies Lebanese land” in Shebaa.
• The old Assad regime’s support was a key pillar of that pretext.
• Without it, the justification looks increasingly hollow — especially since the UN already rejected the “Lebanese territory” framing in 2000.
• Hezbollah has other false arguments (deterrence against Israel, ideological “resistance,” alleged Israeli violations elsewhere), but the Shebaa Farms card was central to portraying itself as the defender of Lebanese sovereignty rather than an Iranian proxy with a parallel army.