V The presence of the Islamic State (ISIS) on Israel’s northern border has been growing in recent weeks, as three groups of Syrian rebels, operating in the south of the country and on the Golan Heights have declared their allegiance to ISIS.

While battles between the Syrian Army and the rebels still rage on the Golan, the current assessment is that the rebels now hold around 90 percent of the territory near the border with Israel. The three latest groups to join ISIS — the Yarmouk Martyrs, Bait al-Maqdis and the Muhammad al-Tilawi Brigades — are relatively small, consisting together of only a few hundred fighters, and the majority of rebels operating in the south are still of more moderate streams.

Some are secretly co-ordinating their operations with Israel, which has a field hospital on the Golan dedicated to treating wounded Syrians. The IDF is keeping a close eye on developments across the border.
Israeli intelligence believes that, for now at least, attacking Israeli targets is not high on the ISIS priority list as the movement is focused on fighting the Syrian Army and suppressing other rebel and minority groups.

However, ISIS is intensely anti-Israeli and could be tempted to use its new positions near the border to launch attacks on Israel, in order to boost its standing in the Arab world and among radical Islamists. Ansar bayt al-Maqdis, an affiliate of ISIS operating in Sinai has in the past launched attacks against southern Israel but is currently focused on fighting a bitter war against the Egyptian security forces.

For most of the past three-and-a-half years, while the Syrian civil war has been going on, Israel’s northern borders have remained relatively calm. There has been a number of rockets and shells fired towards the Israeli side of the Golan by both rebels and the Syrian army but the IDF believes that, in nearly all these cases, they were not intentionally targeting Israel.

In at least two cases this year, Hizbollah operated booby-traps against IDF patrols on the border, apparently in retaliation for an air-attack, allegedly by Israel, on a weapons convoy on the Lebanese side of the border.

In the past three years, Israel has been accused of attacking convoys transferring advanced weapons from Syria to Hizbollah. Israeli officials have refused to comment on whether Israel’s air-force was involved.