Syria just accused Israel of blocking its recovery after secret peace talks collapsed
6 days ago · 25 September 2026Share
Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa meeting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa in New York during the 2026 UN General Assembly. Dati Bendo · CC BY 4.0
Syria just went public with a warning to Israel.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria's President, stood up at the United Nations General Assembly a few hours ago and told Israel to get out of Syrian territory.
He says Israeli attacks are wrecking his country's security and its recovery from war.
Ahmed al-Sharaa says quote "Israel is launching attacks against Syria".
Then he gave the numbers. 500 air strikes. More than 1,200 incursions. 300 detentions. All inside Syria, all by Israel, he says.
Nobody has independently checked those figures yet. Israel hasn't confirmed them. Israel hasn't denied them either.
This is his second speech to the UN since he took power, after he overthrew Bashar al-Assad back in December 2024.
So what does he actually want? He wants Israeli forces back to the lines they held on 8 December 2024. That's the day before Assad fell. And he's pointing to an old agreement from 1974 between Syria and Israel to back that up.
He says quote "we reject Israeli attempts to impose a fait accompli".
Then there's the Golan Heights.
Israel took the Golan from Syria in the 1967 war. Israel annexed it in 1981. America recognised Israel's claim there in 2019, under Donald Trump's first term. Colombia did the same last month — only the second country ever to do that.
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United Nations General Assembly hall in the UN Headquarters, New York City, February 2024. File photo. Mojnsen · CC BY-SA 4.0
Ahmed al-Sharaa told the UN the Golan will stay Syrian. He says any other move will be blocked, and he's pointing to UN Security Council Resolution 497 — the one that already said Israel's annexation counts for nothing.
António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, called Israel's hold on the Golan totally unacceptable when he visited Damascus two months ago.
But here's the part that changes how you read this whole speech.
One day before, at an Atlantic Council event in New York, Ahmed al-Sharaa said something much bigger. He said Syria and Israel have been in direct talks for about a year, with America involved. And he said the two sides got to almost 90 per cent agreement on security arrangements — before Israel pulled back and added new conditions. He didn't say why.
And here's the thing. That's not a secret getting exposed. He said it himself, on the record. Reporting on these same talks had already come out earlier this year, in January and again in July.
At that same event, he said Syria wants Israel to withdraw first, then talks on security, then eventually a real peace. He also said Syria is still in that track. So the door isn't shut. He just used the UN stage to publicly call Israel out anyway.
Israel hasn't responded to the speech. Its position is that troops need to stay in southern Syria, including on Mount Hermon and in the buffer zone, because of threats from Iran-backed groups since Assad fell. Israel Katz, Israel's Defence Minister, said last month troops are staying as long as what he calls jihadist threats exist.
So right now two governments are saying two different things. Syria says Israel should leave, and says a deal was almost done before Israel backed out. Israel says its troops are staying, and hasn't said a word about the near-deal Ahmed al-Sharaa just described in public.
Ahmed al-Sharaa also brought up the numbers on refugees. About 3.5 million people have returned since the war, he says, safely and decently. That's him making the case that Syria's recovery is real, and worth protecting.
What happens now isn't clear. Israel hasn't said if it'll respond to the speech. Neither side has said if the security talks are continuing, paused, or dead. Nobody has said what was actually in that near-90-per-cent deal. And nobody has said why Israel walked back from it.
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