Israel reportedly contacted Assad through WhatsApp in recent years

Israel has reportedly engaged in secret communications with the ousted Bashar al Assad's regime in recent years using the messaging app WhatsApp, according to a report by the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

The report said on Friday that Israel conducted covert operations to establish contact with al Assad and his inner circle, sending messages through Israeli intelligence agents posing as "Musa" on WhatsApp.

The messages allegedly reached high-ranking Syrian regime officials in Damascus.

One operation reportedly sought to negotiate a secret deal where al Assad would halt the transfer of weapons to Lebanon in exchange for lifting international sanctions against his regime.

The report noted that by the end of 2019, Yossi Cohen, then-chief of Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, was scheduled to meet al Assad in the Kremlin. Assad, however, backed out of the meeting.

The Military Intelligence Directorate, known as Aman, allegedly sent the messages to then-Syrian Defense Minister Ali Abbas following Israeli air strikes on targets it claimed were linked to Iran or Hezbollah in Syria.

Al Assad's fall

Al Assad, Syria's Baath regime leader for nearly 25 years, fled to Russia after opposition groups took control of Damascus on December 8, ending the Baath Party's regime, which had been in power since 1963.

The takeover came after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) members captured key cities in a lightning offensive that lasted less than two weeks.

Israel has occupied territories in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine for decades and continues to reject calls to withdraw or to establish an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, based on pre-1967 borders.