Israel is preparing to receive Syrian Alawite refugees on the occupied Golan Heights if the regime of President Bashar al-Assad collapses, Israel’s army chief of staff said on Tuesday. “On the day the Assad regime falls, it is expected to harm the Alawite clan. We are preparing to receive Alawite refugees on the Golan Heights,” Lieutenant General Benny Gantz told MPs at the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs and defence, in remarks communicated by a spokesman.
It was the first time that a senior Israeli official had raised the possibility that members of the Alawite minority, which includes the Assad family, could seek refugee in Israel in order to escape an expected backlash in the event the regime collapses.
The Assad family are Alawites, members of a Shiite minority group who are strongly represented in the top ranks of the Syrian army and the ruling Baath party.
Gantz also said Assad’s fall was likely to affect its alliance with Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah Shiite militia and the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement. “Assad cannot remain in power and his fall could cause cracks in the radical axis,” he said.
