Link: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/13/israeli-raids-in-syria-kill-16-war-monitor
The Israeli air force carried out more than 18 attacks on the Syrian-Iraq border on Wednesday, killing about 47 Syrian soldiers plus 10 allied fighters and injuring 37 others. A war monitor claims this was the deadliest raid since 2018. The motive for this attack was from information given by US intelligence, claiming that pro-Iranian warehouses were being used to store Iranian weapons. These raids were the second wave of Israeli attacks in Syria, most of these attacks are on targets with Iranian affiliation. This area also has a corridor linking Iran with Tehran and is used to smuggle weapons through the country of Lebanon.
These attacks are no surprise, as Israel has never really been on good terms with Iran. This could be a sigh of relief for other Middle Eastern countries, since Iran has seemed to be pushing closer and closer towards nuclear weapon development. But this also could be worrisome for the Middle East, potentially leading to an escalation in this Israeli Iranian conflict. Syria is sitting right in between the two countries. A war between Israel and Iran could be detrimental for this shatterbelt region. This conflict also goes beyond the Middle East, with the US being an ally of Israel and Iran repeatedly defying the nuclear contract made with the UN, I believe a war between these two countries would automatically involve the US and many of UN countries.
As said earlier, the Middle East is a shatterbelt region; meaning there is so much ideological and internal division between countries a major conflict here could possibly have effects lasting many decades. Iran attempted to use geopolitics in its smuggling of weapons through Lebanon. By using their geographical location, Iran was able to take their ally of Syria for weapon storage, and through the Fatimid Brigade and Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which is made up of Afghan pro-Iranian fighters. I believe these attacks by the Israeli military are attempts to keep Iran from reaching hegemonic status in the Middle East, because once that is achieved, who knows what a country with so many ties to terrorist organizations will do.