Islamist rebel forces launched a major offensive against the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, capturing Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city.

"This is unprecedented for the rebellion. The rebellion never held all of Aleppo, and it was expelled from all of Aleppo because it held the eastern part of the city for a while in 2016," Analyst Jonathan Spyer, a Syria expert from the Middle East Forum, told CBN News.

Throughout the weekend, the rebel forces continued to advance southward.

"The regime's continued existence is not yet in danger," Spyer explained. "But nevertheless, this must surely be a major blow to the Assad regime, which has kind of gotten used to regarding itself and being regarded as the de facto legitimate government of Syria."

"Give or take a few areas outside of its control, and indeed, I would say to the larger regional alliance of which the Assad regime forms a part, namely, that regional alliance headed by the Islamic Republic of Iran," he added.

While visiting new recruits to the Israel Defense Forces, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated he is aware of the Syrian situation and will defend its interests.

"We are constantly following what is happening in Syria. We are determined to defend the interests of the State of Israel and to protect the achievements of the war," he said.

Regarding Israel's stance in the matter, Spyer stated, "As of now, I would say there are not major implications for Israel because all of this, of course, is taking place in northwest Syria, which is an appreciable amount of distance away from the Golan Heights and Syria's border with Israel."

"But should the uprising renew itself on a broader scale, and should the unrest come down and reach the border areas, and there are some hints of instability there, then that would come to be of direct relevance to Israel, and Israel would have to be thinking and looking very carefully at who is this new power that's coming into being close to the border," he cautioned. "But we're not quite there yet."

Syrian Christians in Aleppo are concerned for their safety since the city is now in the hands of the Islamic rebels.

"There is some cause for legitimate concern here because, in the past, when we've seen HTS (the Islamist insurgent group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham) and its predecessor organizations Al Nusra, which was at one time the franchise of al-Qaida in Syria – well, we've seen them take over areas in the past where Christians live," Syper explained. "Christians have been treated badly up to and including forced conversions to Islam and other acts of that nature. So, nothing terrible has happened yet. But certainly, we should be watching carefully because this is an area of legitimate concern."

Meanwhile, a shaky ceasefire holding in Lebanon could put pressure on Hamas to make a ceasefire deal in Gaza since its strongest ally, Hezbollah, is temporarily out of the conflict with Israel.

"One of their main partners in crime here, Hezbollah, has now cut a ceasefire deal, and they thought that Hezbollah would be with them till the end," U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told NBC's Meet The Press.

He hopes a ceasefire and a hostage deal can be reached with Gaza.

"Our hope is that we can generate a ceasefire and hostage deal," Sullivan said.

Source