Israel claims it is protecting the Druze by attacking Damascus

Israel carried out heavy airstrikes on Damascus yesterday, damaging the Defense Ministry building and hitting an area near the presidential palace, vowing to destroy Syrian government forces attacking Druze communities in southern Syria and demanding their withdrawal. Syrian authorities said 13 people were wounded in the strikes in Damascus, the state news agency reported.

The attacks represent a significant escalation of Israeli action against the Islamist administration of interim President Ahmed al-Shara and came despite warming relations with the United States and his administration's development of security contacts with Israel.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned the Israeli attacks, calling them "a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic" and "a heinous example of continued aggression and foreign interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states."

Describing the new authorities in Syria as almost covert jihadists, Israel, emboldened by calls from its Druze minority, said it would not allow the deployment of Syrian forces in the south of the country, promising to protect the Druze community in the area from attacks.

Dozens of people have been killed this week in violence in and around the predominantly Druze town of Svedea, where fighters from the Druze community have clashed with Syrian security forces and Bedouin tribesmen.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Israeli military "will continue to act decisively in Svedeia to destroy the forces that attacked the Druze, until they withdraw completely."

Ahmed al-Shara is trying to reassemble Syria, but he faces deep distrust from groups who fear Islamist rule, further deepened by the mass killings of members of the Alawite minority in March.

Syrian government troops were sent to the Swedeje region on Monday to quell clashes between Druze fighters and armed Bedouin groups, but ended up clashing with Druze militias, Reuters reports.

A Druze spiritual leader said Tuesday that his community is under a barbaric attack by Syrian forces. The Syrian government, on the other hand, claims that banned criminal groups are responsible for the violence.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights reported that 169 people were killed in the violence this week. Security sources put the death toll at 300.

The Druze are an Arab religious community of about one million people, living mainly in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. They practice a religion that is a branch of Islam and does not allow conversion or intermarriage with members of other faiths.

In Syria, the Druze community is concentrated in three main provinces near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in the south of the country.

More than 20.000 Druze live in the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that Israel captured from Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967 and then formally annexed in 1981. The Druze share the territory with about 25.000 Jewish settlers, spread across more than 30 settlements.

Most Druze living in the Golan identify as Syrian and rejected the offer of Israeli citizenship when Israel took control of the area. They have been granted Israeli residency permits, but are not considered Israeli citizens.

After the overthrow of longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad, Syria's new leader Al-Shaara promised inclusivity and vowed to protect all communities in Syria, but Sunni extremist forces loyal to him have continued violent clashes with religious minorities.

In March, hundreds of people were killed during clashes with members of the Alawite sect, to which Assad belonged, in the western city of Latakia, while in April, at least 100 people died in clashes between pro-government armed forces and Druze militias.

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said that Israel is "committed to preventing the suffering of Druze in Syria due to the deep brotherly alliance with our Druze citizens in Israel, as well as their family and historical ties with the Druze in Syria."

Israeli Druze Faez Shkeir said he felt helpless watching the violence in Syria. "My family is in Syria, my wife is in Syria, my uncles are from Syria, and my family is in Syria, in Sweden. I can't watch them being killed. They've thrown them out of their homes, looted them and burned their houses, but I can't do anything," he told Reuters.

CNN recalls that since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, Israel has seized additional territory in Syria and repeatedly launched attacks on the country, citing the goal of preventing the rebuilding of military capabilities and eradicating militant elements that could threaten its security.

Israeli attacks have continued despite pressure from its closest ally, the US, to normalise relations with Syria now that the country is under the control of a new government.

The United States is "very concerned" about the violence in southern Syria, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said yesterday. "It poses a direct threat to efforts to build a peaceful and stable Syria. We have had and continue to have discussions with the governments of Syria and Israel on this issue," Rubio said.