Zionists strike near Syria's presidential palace in Damascus

Kuwait Times

04-05-2025

DAMASCUS: Zionists bombed an area near the presidential palace in Damascus early on Friday, in its clearest warning yet to Syria's new Islamist-led authorities of its readiness to ramp up military action in the name of the country's Druze minority. Syria's government called the bombing a 'dangerous escalation' amid increasing hostility between the neighbors. Zionist entity has escalated military operations in Syria since rebels ousted Bashar Al-Assad in December, with bombings across the country and ground forces entering its southwest, while calling for Syria to remain decentralized and isolated.
It has framed its stance around its suspicion of interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa - who once headed a branch of al Qaeda before renouncing ties to the group in 2016 - and a desire to protect the Druze, a minority sect that is an offshoot of Islam with followers in Syria, Lebanon and Zionist entity. The Zionist military said troops were deployed in southern Syria to prevent the return of hostile forces to areas around Druze villages. It said forces were ready for defense and 'various scenarios'.
It added that five Syrian-Druze citizens were evacuated to receive medical treatment after sustaining wounds. Earlier, military said it struck an area 'adjacent' to Sharaa's palace in Damascus, without further details. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The strike was 'a clear message to the Syrian regime: We will not allow (Syrian) forces to deploy south of Damascus or any threat to the Druze community', Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister I Katz said in a joint statement.
Syria's presidency condemned what it described as a 'bombardment on the presidential palace' and said it marked a 'dangerous escalation'. '(Zionist entity) doesn't want peace. Nor does it care for the groups it purportedly protects by bombing others,' Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Razan Saffour wrote on X, adding Zionist entity had never bombed near the palace when Assad was in power. A Syrian official told Reuters the target was about 100 meters east of the palace's perimeter.
It followed days of clashes in Syria between Sunni Muslim and Druze gunmen triggered by a voice recording purportedly insulting the Prophet Mohammed. The fighting killed more than two dozen people in towns around Damascus and prompted an initial 'warning strike' on a town on the capital's outskirts that killed one member of Syria's security forces. Zionist opposition parties expressed support for operations in Syria. '(Zionist entity) cannot abandon the Druze in Syria to their fate,' centrist opposition leader Yair Lapid said on the social media platform X. 'The Syrian regime must know they are our allies and we will not stand by while they are attacked.'
This week's fighting posed the latest challenge for Sharaa, who has repeatedly vowed to unite all of Syria's armed forces under one structure and govern the country, fractured by 14 years of civil war until Assad's overthrow, in an inclusive way. But incidents of sectarian violence, notably the killing of hundreds of pro-Assad Alawites in March, have hardened fears among minority groups about the now-dominant Islamists and sparked condemnation from global powers. On Thursday, the clashes began spreading further south to the province of Sweida, which is predominantly Druze.
'Don't need anyone's protection'
Late on Thursday, Druze community leaders and Syrian government officials met in Sweida in a bid to defuse tensions. Their concluding statement said residents of Sweida would protect their province as a part of Syria's internal security forces, and rejected 'division, separation or secession'. 'Syria is our mother nation, we do not have an alternative country,' Sheikh Laith al-Balous, one of the Druze leaders in the meeting, told Syria TV in an interview when asked whether Zionist airstrikes on Syria were meant to protect the Druze. 'We don't need anyone's protection.'
Syrian security forces were patrolling the village of Al-Soura al-Kubra in Sweida province on Friday, where residents had fled clashes the previous day between approaching Sunni Islamist militants and Druze fighters defending the town. Residents told Reuters that when they returned, they found their homes had been looted. Salman Olaiwi said his door had been broken down and money was missing, but that he was glad an agreement had been reached to end the fighting.
Zionist entity has a small Druze community and there are also some 24,000 Druze living in the occupied Golan Heights, which Zionists captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war. Zionists annexed the territory in 1981, a move that has not been recognized by most countries or the United Nations. Some Druze in Zionist entity serving in the military wrote to Netanyahu demanding help for their kin in Syria, saying 'hundreds of fighters' were ready to volunteer to help. — Reuters