Contacts and meetings held between Israel and Syria have not reached any final understanding or agreement between both sides, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday in response to a report published by Asharq Al-Awsat.
Asharq Al-Awsat had quoted unnamed sources saying US mediation brought Netanyahu and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa together for a meeting during September’s UN General Assembly in New York.
Those talks advanced far enough that Netanyahu declined to endorse a draft security arrangement with Damascus, it wrote.
The Prime Minister’s Office said in statement: “There were contacts and meetings organized by the US, but no agreements and understandings with Syria were ever reached.”
Amid the controversy, a Syrian source familiar with the details told Channel 12: “The final draft of the agreement is almost ready and in its last stages. A breakthrough could happen very soon.”
The source added: “The agreement’s terms are largely agreed upon, with many clauses symbolically signed and written, waiting for US officials to approach Israel and say: ‘This is the final formula, and we want to move forward.’”
He said the pause is currently on Israel’s side, not Syria’s. “So far, the formula is acceptable to Syria and largely acceptable to Israel.”
Israeli media outlets recalled what happened between both sides last September.
The i24 News channel said that at the time, Sharaa had affirmed Damascus and Jerusalem will soon share a new security agreement. His comments came shortly after Reuters said Washington is pushing for enough progress to be made by the time world leaders gather in New York for the UN General Assembly at the end of the month to allow Trump to announce a breakthrough.
The Israeli channel said the deal was obstructed after Syria presented territorial demands that Israel cannot accept, including a withdrawal from the strategically sensitive Mount Hermon and areas in Syria’s buffer zone.
Later, the Times of Israel newspaper confirmed the reports saying that while there was optimism in September that a deal could be signed, Reuters reported at the time of the assembly that contacts between Israel and Syria regarding the deal had reached a dead end due to Israel’s demand to open a “humanitarian corridor” into the Sweida province in southern Syria – where sectarian violence has killed hundreds of people from the Druze community, which Israel has vowed to protect.
The newspaper also cited an Axios report saying Israel has reportedly presented Syria with a detailed proposal for a new security agreement regarding southwest Syria, demanding a no-fly zone and demilitarized zone over its border in Syria, with no limits on Israeli deployment on its own territory.
In return, Israel would withdraw in stages from the buffer zone it established after Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad fell last December, but would remain on the peak of Mount Hermon.
The Israeli army has been deployed to nine posts inside southern Syria for nearly a year, since the Assad regime was brought down, mostly within a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the border between the countries. Two posts are on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon.
Israel said it seized the areas in southern Syria last December due to fears they would fall into the wrong hands after the regime collapsed and said it would hold on to them until a new security deal was signed.
The Walla website reported that Netanyahu was present at the UN General Assembly meeting and was planning to meet with the Syrian leader and sign a security deal with Syria.
But Damascus insisted on Israel’s withdrawal from territory seized in the Golan Heights since Assad’s fall. Tel Aviv refused, saying its troops need to remain in the area to protect its residents in the north.
