As smoke rises from Sweida, members of the Israeli armed forces and Israeli Druze stand on the Syrian side of the cease-fire line between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria, July 16, 2025. (Credit: Ammar Awad/Reuters)
More than 300 people have been killed in days of violence in southern Syria's Sweida province, a war monitor said Wednesday, raising an earlier toll of 248 dead.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that since clashes erupted on Sunday, 69 Druze fighters were killed as well as 40 civilians, 27 of whom in "summary executions ... by members of the defence and interior ministries."
The Britain-based monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, said 165 government forces and 18 Bedouin fighters were also killed in the clashes.
The monitor further reported that 10 members of the government's security forces were killed in Israeli strikes in the area.
Israel has repeatedly stated its intention to defend the Druze of Syria from bouts of sectarian violence that have broken out since Islamists in December ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.
The latest violence erupted between Druze and Bedouin fighters after the kidnapping of a Druze vegetable merchant triggered tit-for-tat abductions, the Observatory has said.
The Bedouin and the Druze have been at loggerheads for decades.
Syrian government forces on Tuesday entered the majority-Druze city of Sweida with the stated aim of overseeing a cease-fire, but witnesses reported that the government forces joined with the Bedouin in attacking Druze fighters and civilians.
Israel's Defense Minister, Israel Katz, on Wednesday promised that the Israeli military would "operate forcefully" in Syria's southern Sweida region "to eliminate the forces that attacked the Druze until their full withdrawal."
