READ HERE: Amid ongoing talks with Israel, Syria’s new Islamist-led government is considering a scenario in which it would relinquish claims to most of the Golan Heights to Israel, in exchange for carving the city of Tripoli and surrounding territory out of Lebanon and making it part of Syria. The development was first reported by Israel’s i24News, which didn’t address the question of how Israel would have any authority to trade another country’s territory.

Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967’s Six-Day War and annexed it in 1981. In 2019, the Trump administration became the first country to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the 700 square miles of strategically-important land. Six years later, the United States still stands alone in doing so, as Israel’s annexation is widely seen as a violation of international law and the United Nations charter. Following Assad’s collapse, the Israeli army raced into Syria and seized what had been a demilitarized, UN-monitored “buffer zone” under a 1974 ceasefire agreement, and also ventured beyond it. Israel did so despite assurances from the new Syrian government’s assurance that it would honor the 1974 agreement. Other violations of Syrian territory has been part of the Israeli routine for years, with periodic bombings that have continued after the fall of Assad.