Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel has made progress in talks with Syria that could lead to peace agreements with both Damascus and Beirut, ahead of a reported meeting to be convened on Sunday evening to discuss the issue.
Shortly thereafter, a Trump administration official told The Times of Israel that an emerging security agreement between Israel and Syria is “99%” complete, and that an announcement is expected within the next two weeks.
At the start of the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday morning, Netanyahu told ministers: “Our victories in Lebanon against Hezbollah have opened a window into a possibility that wasn’t even imaginable prior to our recent operations, and that is the possibility of peace with our neighbors to the north.”
“We are making steps with the Syrians — there is certain progress, but it’s still a vision for the future,” Netanyahu said. “In any case, these discussions, as well as the talks with Lebanon, wouldn’t have been possible without our decisive victories on the northern front and also on other fronts.”
In 2024, Israel devastated the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon. Hezbollah had begun launching near-daily missile fire on Israel one day after fellow terror group Hamas, which ruled the Gaza Strip, attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
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Almost a year of skirmishes along Israel’s northern border culminated with two months of open war, including an Israeli ground invasion of southern Lebanon, ending with a ceasefire in November 2024. Less than two weeks later, Islamist-led rebels ousted longtime Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose regime had been supported amid the civil war in Syria by Hezbollah and its Iranian backers.
Israeli troops patrol the border fence with Syria near the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights on July 23, 2025 (Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
Netanyahu was set to convene a meeting Sunday evening to discuss an emerging security agreement with Syria, the office of one of the attendees told The Times of Israel on Saturday, with Damascus seeking to secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
In a video address Sunday evening, Netanyahu said Israel is not about to give up buffer zones inside Syria where troops are now stationed.
He said that Israel is in talks with the new government in Syria about “them demilitarizing southwest Syria, and we take care of the security of our Druze allies in Jabal Druze.”
As Islamist-led forces toppled Assad in December 2024, Israel deployed troops to the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights, which has separated Israeli and Syrian forces since an armistice that followed the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Senior US official: Israel-Syria deal ‘99%’ done
Meanwhile on Sunday, a senior official in the Trump administration told The Times of Israel that an emerging Israel-Syria security agreement is “99%” complete, with an announcement expected within the next two weeks.
“We’re 99% of the way there. I think in the next two weeks, we’ll have an announcement, if not at the end of the week,” the official said, adding that the main issues left to resolve are the precise timing of the announcement and domestic considerations in Syria.
“It’s really a question of timing and also the Syrians communicating it to their people,” the official said.
Read more: 48 surreal hours in Damascus — an Israeli reporter’s travelogue from an enemy capital
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, US Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack, center, meets with Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, left, in Damascus, Syria, Monday, August 25, 2025. (SANA via AP)
Israeli and Syrian officials held a US-brokered meeting in London on Wednesday that the Axios news site said lasted five hours, fueling anticipation that an agreement could be announced this week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, which both Netanyahu and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa will be attending.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Sharaa said the security pact with Israel was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since December 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled Assad.
Sharaa said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights, much of which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War and later extended sovereignty over.
Lazar Berman contributed to this report.
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