Between Sunday and Tuesday, the Israeli air force and navy carried out operation “Bashan Arrow”—after the biblical name for the Golan Heights—which involved 350 strikes on Syrian military assets, disabling, according to the the IDF, between 70 and 80 percent of Syria’s “strategic” weaponry. The operation destroyed Scud missiles, weapons factories, anti-aircraft batteries, chemical weapons, and most of the Syrian navy.

Important as these steps are, Jerusalem will also have to devise a longer-term approach to dealing with Syria. Ehud Yaari has some suggestions, and also notes one of the most important consequences for Israel of Bashar al-Assad’s demise:

One of the most important commentators in Tehran, Suheil Karimi, has warned on Iranian television that “without Assad, ultimately there will be no Hizballah.” Weakened, confused, and decapitated, Hizballah is bound to lose much of its political clout inside Lebanon.

Yaari believes that the next steps in Syria should revolve around making and maintaining alliances, while staying on guard:

Military deployments along the Golan Heights border with Syria have taken place, but should not reach a point where they are seen on the other side of the border as a menace. There is no reason to fear the rebel factions in the adjacent Dara’a and Quneitra provinces [along the Israeli border]. Many of their commanders were assisted by Israel for years before they had to accept a deal with Assad in 2018. Some of those commanders regularly met Israeli officers in Tiberias and in other places. Many villages in this region have benefited in the past decade from Israel’s Good Neighborhood operation, which provided humanitarian aid on a large scale. . . .

Turkey has managed to have the upper hand in its competition with Iran over influence in Syria. Rapprochement with [the Turkish president Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan would be complicated yet not impossible.

The negotiations that secured the release of Edan Alexander were conducted by the U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Adam Boehler, with reportedly little or no involvement from the Israelis. Amit Segal considers:

Does Edan’s release mean foreign-passport holders receive priority over those only with Israeli passports? He is, after all, is a dual American-Israeli citizen who grew up in New Jersey. While it may not be the intended message, many will likely interpret the deal as such: foreign-passport holders are worth more. In a country where many citizens are already obtaining second passports, encouraging even more to do so is unwise, to say the least.

Another bad look for Israel: Washington is freeing Edan, not Jerusalem. . . .

Then there’s the question of the Qatari jumbo jet. At this point we can only speculate, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that as Hamas is set to release a hostage, Trump is also accepting a super luxury jumbo jet from Qatar worth around $400 million. Are the two connected?

Still, Segal reminds us that in one, crucial way, this deal is superior to those that preceded it:

The fact that Hamas appears to be freeing a hostage for nothing in return is indeed a victory. Don’t forget: in February, in exchange for the bodies of four hostages, Israel released over 600 Palestinian prisoners, not to mention the Palestinian terrorists—many of whom have Jewish blood on their hands—released in other deals during this war.

As serious as the concerns Segal and others have raised are, that last point makes me think that some of the handwringing about the deal by other commentators is exaggerated. The coming IDF offensive—tanks have been massing on the edge of Gaza in recent days—the many weeks during which supplies haven’t entered the Strip, and Israel’s declared plans not to allow Hamas the ability to distribute humanitarian aid cannot but have made the jihadists more pliable.

And the deal was made on a schedule set by Israel, which said that it would embark on a full-bore offensive at the end of the week if the hostages aren’t released. Moreover, in the parameters Hamas has set forth until now, Alexander, a male soldier, would have been among the last of the hostages to be exchanged.

What of the claim that President Trump has achieved what Prime Minister Netanyahu couldn’t? Again, there is some truth here. But it’s worth noting that the Hostages Forum—a group representing most of the hostages’ families, consistently critical of Netanyahu, and supported by a broad swath of Israelis—has since at least January been demanding a deal where all the hostages are freed at once. (This demand is an understandable reaction to the sadistic games Hamas played with the weekly releases earlier this year and in the fall of 2023.) So Trump let them down too.

In fact, Trump previously promised that “all hell would break loose” if all hostages weren’t released. Neither has happened, so I’m not sure if Trump looks all that much stronger than Netanyahu.

My takeaway, though, isn’t a defense or criticism of either leader, but simply a cautionary note: let’s not jump to conclusions quite yet.