The first clash between the eastern Mediterranean's two foremost powers thus ended in a Byzantine victory, which on the one hand strengthened the Byzantine position in northern Syria and on the other weakened the Fatimids, both in lives lost and in morale and reputation. As the historian Paul Walker writes, had Ibn Falah "possessed the troops and the prestige lost at Alexandretta, he might have resisted the onrush of the Qarmatians. The armies of the local districts might have aided him had they not dispersed". In the end, Ja'far was unable to resist the Qarmatians and their Arab Bedouin allies; making the fatal choice of confronting them in the desert, he was defeated and killed in battle in August 971. It was a defeat that led to the near total collapse of Fatimid control in southern Syria and Palestine, and the Qarmatian invasion of Egypt. The Fatimids were victorious before Fustat, however, and eventually managed to drive the Qarmatians out of Syria and restore their control over the restive province. The Byzantines remained quiescent until the great campaigns led by John Tzimiskes in person in 974–975. Although the emperor advanced deep into Muslim lands and even threatened to take Jerusalem, his death in January 976 lifted the Byzantine danger for the Fatimids: the Byzantines would never again try to advance far beyond their northern Syrian possessions around Antioch.
