Three major developments involving Israel and Syria took place June 29 and 30. The Israel Defense Forces significantly beefed up its presence in the Golan Heights, including the armored and artillery corps, in light of the advance of President Bashar al-Assad’s army in southern Syria. Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot landed in Washington for a series of urgent meetings regarding developments on the northern front and the campaign being waged by Israel and the United States vis-a-vis Iran. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also conducted a secret night operation to transfer large quantities of humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees, including foodstuffs, medications, tents and clothing to the tens of thousands of Syrian refugees who have dug in opposite the Israeli border.

Israel is determined not to allow the refugees to enter its territory and is going out of its way to help them where they are. On July 1, Israel announced that it would not allow Assad’s army to enter the demilitarized territory on the border between the two states. The 1974 cease-fire agreement between them refers to a wide demilitarized strip of land that separates Israel and Syria and is now populated by refugees who are massing on Israel’s borders as the Syrian army rapidly advances on the territories held by the rebels in the country’s south. Israel finds itself torn between helping the rebels, with whom Israel has developed a relationship of sorts, and reluctantly reconciling itself to Assad’s return to the border. So far, Israel has decided not to decide and limits itself to humanitarian aid.

But the real drama is taking place in Washington, in the course of the meetings between Eizenkot and his American counterparts, headed by Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one in Israel knew that Eizenkot had brought with him Gen. Nitzan Alon, who recently left his position as head of the army’s operations branch and was secretly appointed to head the Iranian project. The officer, viewed as an especially creative and brilliant military man, received the entire Israeli-Iranian portfolio. Alon was also given responsibility to manage the intensive contacts between Israel and the United States on this subject. A July 1 phone call between Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu and intensive contacts between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his people with higher-ups in the American administration also came together in preparation for a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump expected to be held July 16 in Helsinki.

The United States and Israel are extremely well coordinated with regard to the Iranian threat. Eizenkot presented a large quantity of intelligence to Dunford and his people, including overviews of what is taking place in Iran and the tremendous impact of the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement and its imposition of additional sanctions. According to a high-level military source who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, Israel was recently taken by surprise by the extent of Iranian determination and grit, especially that of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.