Israel contacted Assad via WhatsApp for years: Report

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

It said Israel conducted covert operations to establish contact with Assad and his inner circle, sending messages through Israeli intelligence agents posing as "Musa" on WhatsApp. The messages allegedly reached high-ranking officials in Damascus.

One operation reportedly sought to negotiate a secret deal where 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 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 airstrikes on targets it claimed were linked to Iran or Hezbollah in Syria.

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

The takeover came after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham fighters 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.