Russia is continuing efforts to enforce an agreement designed to stabilize the situation at the border between Israel and Syria. Under the agreement, Iranian forces and their proxies are pulling back from southern Syria in exchange for Damascus' resumption of control of the Syrian-Israeli border and Israeli recognition of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s authority over Syrian territory according to the 1974 borders.
Russia also moved to deploy its military police at the Golan Heights frontier between Syria and Israel and plans to set up eight observation posts in the area. This effort is designed to prevent a direct conflict between Iran and Israel.
On Aug. 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy to Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, confirmed that Iran's forces and proxies had withdrawn 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Syria's border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. In other words, Lavrentiev declared that Russia managed to seal the deal between Iran and Israel that Moscow had been brokering for the past several months. The last details of this deal were probably finalized July 23, when Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov and chief of the Russian General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov visited Jerusalem to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, General Staff chief Gadi Eizenkot and head of the National Security Council Meir Ben-Shabbat.
However, sources close to the Israeli and Russian governments who spoke with Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity said the main principles of the deal were finalized even earlier, during Liberman’s May 31 visit to Moscow. The visit was timely: Israel and Iran had already been teetering on the edge of a broader — possibly direct — confrontation. On May 10, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched its first-ever massive missile attack on Israel. Previously, Iran’s proxies, but not Iranian forces themselves, carried out missile strikes against Israel. This attack was immediately followed by a massive Israeli retaliation: Israeli air forces struck numerous targets in attacks they claimed caused losses among Iranian troops and their allied forces deployed in Syria.
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