Israel hits Syrian troops in Druze city of Sweida after violent clashes

Times

15-07-2025

Israel has carried out strikes on Syrian soldiers as they deployed in the southern Druze city of Sweida on Tuesday to impose a curfew after clashes are said to have left over 100 dead.
Damascus had been warned by Israel against sending troops and armour to the south, closer to its border, which Israel wants to turn into a demilitarised zone. It has also said it would not allow any harm to the Druze, a minority with a sizeable population in Israel, alongside Syria and Lebanon.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said in a statement he had instructed the military to intervene to 'prevent harm to the Druze in Syria' and to police the demilitarisation zone, which Damascus had not agreed to.
The Israeli military said it had targeted several tanks and armoured vehicles in the airstrikes.
Syria's foreign ministry said that it held Israel fully responsible for the latest attacks and any consequences. In a statement, the ministry said that it would protect all Syrian citizens without exception, including the Druze.
Syrian government forces had begun deploying in the city on Tuesday after an agreement with Druze religious leaders to end some of the deadliest fighting in Syria since March, when the new government put down an insurrection by another minority, the Alawis that ended in massacres of civilians.
But as they started to enter the city, a leading Druze leader recanted a statement welcoming them, saying he had been forced to issue it under duress, and called for 'resistance'. The government later agreed to withdraw its soldiers and replace them with a police force.
The latest violence began with clashes between the Druze and Bedouin tribes, which involved government forces. Syria's interior ministry said at least 30 people were killed but a Syrian monitoring group put the toll at 116.
On Sunday Bedouin gunmen abducted a Druze vegetable vendor on the highway to Damascus, prompting retaliatory kidnappings and escalating unrest.
In Israel, dozens of Druze held protests in various locations demanding the government do more to intervene and support their brethren, blocking roads and torching car tires in some instances.
Some protesters were believed to have crossed the border with Syria. Israel's military posted on X that their 'troops are currently working to safely return the civilians' home.
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The Druze make up about 1 per cent of Israel's population, but many hold senior positions in the military and police.
Israel had taken a hardline stance on the new government, which is led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda commander who led rebels into overthrowing the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December.
It had warned Sharaa against sending forces to the south, nearer to its border, and conducted several airstrikes against his troops, saying it wanted to protect the Druze in the south. However, it has also held talks with his government on security arrangements after its troops took over a buffer zone and more territory in Syria after Assad's overthrow.
Amichai Chikli, Israel's diaspora affairs minister, called for Sharaa to be 'eliminated without delay', accusing the Syrian leader on both his English and Hebrew X accounts of being a 'terrorist, a barbaric murderer'.
Sharaa has struggled to impose the central government's authority on the country, which was riven by a decade-long and increasingly sectarian civil war under Assad, who hailed from the Alawi minority.
In March, Syrian troops and allied militia were accused of massacring hundreds of Alawis after insurrectionists killed several dozen soldiers, raising concerns among the Druze, who have refused to come under the new government's authority.
Sharaa, however, received a boost from President Trump two months later, after Trump agreed to meet in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and lift all sanctions on the country. Trump also rescinded a US terrorism designation against Sharaa and his former rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
In northern Lebanon, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 12 people, including seven Syrians who were in a displaced people's camp, the Lebanese news agency reported. The Israeli military said it had struck Hezbollah targets in the area as it tries to prevent the militia from rearming and regrouping after a war last year.