Syrian police officers standing guard at a checkpoint in Ashrafiyat Sahnaya, near Damascus, on May 1, 2025. (Credit: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP.)
Israel executed its threat against Syria on Friday by bombing the outskirts of the presidential palace in Damascus after the leader of the Druze minority, protected by Israeli power, accused the new Syrian president Ahmad al-Sharaa's regime of "genocide."
The most influential Druze religious leader in Syria, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajrin, denounced an 'unjustified genocidal campaign' targeting "civilians" of his community Thursday night, following sectarian clashes earlier in the week that left more than 100 dead, according to an NGO. The Druze religious leader then called for "immediate intervention by international forces" and Israel — neighboring Syria with which it is at war and which has taken up the Druze cause — had immediately threatened to respond 'with force' if Damascus did not protect this religious minority.
A few hours later, at dawn on Friday, "fighter jets struck the surroundings of the palace" in Damascus, announced the Israeli army on Telegram. "This is a clear message sent to the Syrian regime. We will not allow (Syrian) forces to be dispatched south of Damascus or to threaten in any way the Druze community," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement published in English by the Times of Israel newspaper.
Clashes near and south of Damascus between Druze fighters and armed groups linked to the Sunni power of President al-Sharaa illustrate the persistent instability in Syria, nearly five months after the overthrow of his predecessor Bashar al-Assad, an Alawite minority member.
"We no longer trust an entity that claims to be a government. A government does not kill its people using its own extremist militias, then, after the massacres, pretend that these are uncontrolled elements," the Druze sheikh had denounced.
'Inflammatory rhetoric'
The U.N. has urged "all parties to exercise maximum restraint" and U.S. diplomacy has condemned "the latest reprehensible and unacceptable anti-Druze violence and inflammatory rhetoric."
Fighting this week in Jaramana and Sahnaya, where Christians and Druze live, as well as in Suweida, a predominantly Druze city, have revived the specter of massacres that killed more than 1,700 people, mostly Alawite minority members, in early March in the west of the country. These atrocities were triggered by attacks from pro-Assad militants against security forces of the new regime.
Already on Wednesday, the Israeli army struck near Damascus, as a "warning" against an "extremist group preparing to attack the Druze population of Sahnaya,"according to Netanyahu.
The Druze are a minority of Shia Islam. Its members are divided between Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. "We are an inalienable part of Syria," stressed a spokesman for the gathering of religious authorities, traditional leaders, and Druze armed groups in Suweida, adding that the community rejected "any division" of the country.
The fighting in Syria was triggered Monday evening by an attack by armed groups affiliated with the power against Jaramana, after the dissemination on social networks of an audio message attributed to a Druze and deemed blasphemous towards the Prophet Mohammed. AFP could not verify the authenticity of the message. Syrian authorities accused elements beyond their control of inciting the violence.
102 dead
According to a report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), these clashes resulted in 102 deaths, including 30 members of security forces and affiliated fighters, 21 Druze fighters, and 11 civilians in Jaramana and Sahnaya. In the province of Suweida, 40 Druze fighters perished, including 35 in an ambush, according to the NGO. In Jaramana, agreements between Druze representatives and the authorities allowed calm to be restored on Tuesday evening, as well as Wednesday evening in Sahnaya, 15 km southwest of Damascus where security forces were deployed. And the Syrian authorities reaffirmed their "firm commitment to protect all components of the Syrian people, including the Druze community."
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad on December 8, overthrown by a coalition of Islamist rebel factions led by Sharaa after more than 13 years of civil war, Israel has multiplied gestures of openness towards the Druze, seeking, according to independent analyst Michael Horowitz, to secure allies in southern Syria at a time when the country's future remains uncertain.
