'We will not allow creation of second Lebanon' in Syria, Netanyahu says

"We will not allow the creation of a second Lebanon [in the southwest of] Syria," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday, according to the Israeli media outlet Israel National News.

During a visit with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to the Hashmonaim Brigade base in the Jordan Valley, Netanyahu said he was "committed to keeping the region in southwestern Syria as a demilitarized area in the State of Israel," according to the same source. This is a reference to the occupied Golan, an area the United Nations considers to be occupied Syrian territory. He added: "We are also committed to protecting the Druze population ... through intense action. I hope we will not have to go further; that largely depends on what is understood and done — or not done — in Damascus."

An NGO on Tuesday accused Syrian government forces of executing 19 Druze civilians after they entered the city of Sweida in southern Syria. Israel, which says it seeks to defend the Druze community, the majority in this city of about 150,000 inhabitants, bombed government forces after they entered Sweida. Syria denounced these strikes and said it held Israel responsible for their "consequences."

The province of Sweida is home to the country's largest Druze community, an esoteric minority originating in Islam that had about 700,000 members in Syria before the civil war. It is also present in Lebanon and Israel. Clashes broke out Sunday between Druze fighters and Bedouin tribes, whose relations have been tense for decades. Government forces intervened, claiming they wanted to pacify the region, but took part in the fighting against the Druze factions alongside the Bedouins, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), witnesses and Druze groups. According to SOHR, the clashes left 116 dead, including 64 Druze, most of them fighters, but also two women and two children, 18 Bedouins and 34 members of security forces. Syrian authorities announced a "total cease-fire" on Tuesday morning, but the situation remains unclear.