Israel bombs near Syrian Defense Ministry, saying it is supporting religious minority

NBC News

16-07-2025

Clashes raged in the southern Syrian city of Sweida on Wednesday after a ceasefire between government forces and Druze armed groups collapsed and as Israel threatened to escalate its involvement, saying it's in support of the Druze religious minority.
The Israeli army struck near the entrance to the Syrian Ministry of Defense in Damascus and targeted the same site several hours later with a larger strike. Israel has also launched a series of airstrikes on convoys of government forces in southern Syria since the clashes erupted and has beefed up forces on the border.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters he was 'very concerned' about the strikes.
Syria's Defense Ministry had earlier blamed militias in the Druze-majority area of Sweida for violating a ceasefire agreement that had been reached Tuesday, causing Syrian army soldiers to return fire. It said they were 'adhering to rules of engagement to protect residents, prevent harm, and ensure the safe return of those who left the city back to their homes.'
Meanwhile, reports of attacks on civilians continued to surface, and Druze with family members in the conflict zone searched desperately for information about their fate amid communication blackouts.
A rebel offensive led by Islamist insurgent groups ousted Syria's longtime despotic leader, Bashar Assad, in December, bringing an end to a nearly 14-year civil war. Since then, the country's new rulers have struggled to consolidate control.
The primarily Sunni Muslim leaders have faced suspicion from religious and ethnic minorities, whose fears increased after clashes between government forces and pro-Assad armed groups in March spiraled into sectarian revenge attacks. Hundreds of civilians from the Alawite religious minority, to which Assad belongs, were killed.
Druze fear for the lives of their relatives in Sweida
In Jaramana near the Syrian capital, Evelyn Azzam, 20, said she fears that her husband, Robert Kiwan, 23, is dead. The newlyweds live in the Damascus suburb, but Kiwan would commute to Sweida for work each morning and got trapped there when the clashes erupted.
Azzam said she was on the phone with Kiwan when security forces questioned him and a colleague about whether they were affiliated with Druze militias. When her husband's colleague raised his voice, she heard a gunshot. Kiwan was then shot while trying to appeal.
'They shot my husband in the hip from what I could gather,' she said, struggling to hold back tears. 'The ambulance took him to the hospital. Since then, we have no idea what has happened.'
A Syrian Druze from Sweida living in the United Arab Emirates said her mother, father, and sister were hiding in a basement in their home near the hospital, where they could hear the sound of shelling and bullets from outside. She spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear her family might be targeted.
She had struggled to get hold of them, but when she reached them, she said, 'I heard them cry. I have never heard them this way before.'
Another Druze woman living in the UAE with family members in Sweida, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said a cousin told her that a house where their relatives lived had been burned down with everyone inside it.
It reminded her of when the Islamic State extremist group attacked Sweida in 2018, she said. Her uncle was among many civilians there who took arms to fight back while Assad's forces stood aside. He was killed in the fighting.
'It's the same right now,' she told The Associated Press. The Druze fighters, she said, are 'just people who are protecting their province and their families.'
The Druze religious sect began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria. Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981.