Syria and Israel agree to ceasefire as new clashes rock Druze heartland
The US envoy to Syria said early Saturday that Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire following Israel's intervention this week in fighting between Syrian government forces and rival armed groups. The announcement came as renewed clashes erupted between Druze groups and Bedouin clans and Damascus said it would send troops back in to quell the fighting.
Armed Bedouins gather in the village of Al-Mazraa outside Syria's Sweida as clashes flare with Druze fighters on July 18, 2025. © Bakr Alkasem, AFP
Washington- The United States said early Saturday that it had negotiated a ceasefire between
Israel
and
Syria
's government as new clashes erupted in Syria's
Druze
heartland following violence that prompted massive Israeli strikes.
At least
718
people have died since Sunday in violence between the Druze and Bedouins, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, drawing questions over the authority of Syria's interim leader
Ahmed al-Sharaa
.
Israel intervened Wednesday with major strikes in the heart of the capital Damascus, including hitting the army's headquarters.
Tom Barrack, the US pointman on Syria, said in the early hours of Saturday in the Middle East that Sharaa and Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu
'have agreed to a ceasefire' negotiated by the United States.
Barrack, who is US ambassador to Ankara, said the deal was backed by
Turkey
, a key supporter of Sharaa, as well as neighbouring
Jordan
.
'We call upon Druze, Bedouins and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity in peace and prosperity with its neighbours,' he wrote on X.
The United States on Wednesday announced an earlier deal in which Sharaa pulled government forces out of Sweida, the southern hub of the Druze minority.
Sharaa said the mediation helped avert a 'large-scale escalation' with Israel but his office accused Druze fighters of violating it.
A
n armed Bedouin walks past a burnt out vehicle in the Syrian village of Al-Mazraa, outside Sweida. © Bakr Alkasem, AFP
In the corridors of the Sweida National Hospital, a foul odour emanated from the swollen and disfigured bodies piled up in refrigerated storage units, an AFP correspondent reported.
A small number of doctors and nurses at the hospital worked to treat the wounded arriving from the ongoing clashes, some in the hallways.
Omar Obeid, a doctor at the government hospital, told AFP that the facility has received 'more than 400 bodies' since Monday morning.
'There is no more room in the morgue. The bodies are in the street' in front of the hospital, added Obeid, president of the Sweida branch of the Order of Physicians.
The UN's International Organization for Migration on Friday said that 79,339 people have been displaced since Sunday, including 20,019 on Thursday alone.
Tribal back-up
Tribal reinforcements from across Syria gathered in villages around Sweida on Friday to reinforce local Bedouin, whose longstanding enmity towards the Druze erupted into violence last weekend.
Bedouin fighters watch on as a building goes up in smoke in the village of Al-Mazraa outside Sweida. © Omar Haj Kadour, AFP
Anas al-Enad, a tribal chief from the central city of Hama, said he and his men had made the journey to the village of Walgha, northwest of Sweida, because 'the Bedouin called for our help and we came to support them'.
An AFP correspondent saw burning homes and shops in the village, now under the control of the Bedouin and their allies.
Israel, which has its own sizable Druze community, said Friday that it was sending support valued at nearly $600,000, including food and medical supplies, to Druze in Sweida.
Israel has vowed to defend the Druze community, although some diplomats and analysts say its goal is to weaken the military in Syria, its historic adversary, seeing it at a weak point since Sharaa's Sunni Islamists toppled
Bashar al-Assad
, an Iranian ally, in December.
UN demands independent probe
Rayan Maarouf, editor-in-chief of local news outlet Suwayda 24, said the humanitarian situation was 'catastrophic'.
'We cannot find milk for children,' he told AFP.
Bedouin and tribal fighters at the western entrance of Syria's Druze heartland, Sweida. © Bakr Alkasem, AFP
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called for an end to the bloodshed and 'independent, prompt and transparent investigations into all violations'.
The International Committee for the Red Cross warned that health facilities were overwhelmed, with power cuts impeding the preservation of bodies in overflowing morgues.
'The humanitarian situation in Sweida is critical. People are running out of everything,' said Stephan Sakalian, the head of ICRC's delegation in Syria.
'Hospitals are increasingly struggling to treat the wounded and the sick, and families are unable to bury their loved ones in dignity,' he said.
The latest violence erupted Sunday after the kidnapping of a Druze vegetable merchant by local Bedouin triggered tit-for-tat abductions, the Britain-based Observatory said.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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On the morning of Sunday, July 20, after several sleepless hours — as has been the case for many nights now — I learned of the death of my great-uncle, Hayel Kontar. Hayel was 82 years old. He had spent his life in Sweida, where he worked for the Red Crescent. An educated, cultured man, he was respected by all for his kindness and humanity. He was killed by Islamists of Syria's new regime, solely because he was Druze. I have lost count of the deaths in my family. So far, the toll has already passed 15, and it is still impossible to know the true number of victims of this barbaric invasion launched against the Druze-majority province. Sweida lies in devastation. Every town and village — about 30 — crossed by the army and militias linked to Damascus, has been set on fire. Residents who did not flee were massacred. In my village, Dama, in the Lajah region, homes were looted, then torched one after another. One of the fighters even filmed the scene, posting a video in which he can be heard rejoicing: 'All the Druze houses in Dama are burning.' The death toll remains impossible to determine. There is no water, electricity, fuel or functioning hospital. Sweida's main hospital is out of service. Corpses piled in body bags line the streets. The so-called "valiant" army of Sharaa looted supermarkets before setting them on fire. The city has only a few days' worth of food left. Vehicles that were not stolen have been burned, making any movement nearly impossible. The ravaged towns have been abandoned, cut off from the world. Relief efforts cannot be coordinated. Residents organize however they can, discovering the horror as they gradually regain a foothold in the neighborhoods that had been occupied by government forces. Among the atrocities recorded is the massacre of the family of Khaled Mazhar, head of the Evangelical Church of the Good Shepherd in Sweida. He, his brothers, their children — 20 people in all — were executed in their home. Why this bloodbath? Buoyed by the lifting of sanctions, and by the removal of his name from the U.S. terrorism list, the interim president wanted to assert his authority by brute force in Sweida, as he had in Idlib: by crushing all political and social forces. In talks with Israel for a peace treaty, and with his international legitimacy strengthened, he felt the time was ripe to bring the Druze province under control by force. He exploited the recurrent tensions between Druze and Bedouins — tensions usually settled through mediation by local elders — to send his army on the pretext of intervention. This tragedy reveals above all the mindset animating Syria's new rulers. To the new masters of Damascus and their supporters, who always refer to the Islamic era of the Umayyads, the minority's son, even if national and 'honorable,' is only a dhimmi, who should only speak to thank the wisdom of the regime that allows him to live on his land. But if he demands equal rights, then he becomes a traitor, a foreign agent. This ideology comes through in statements by regime supporters: to them, the nation is synonymous with the Sunni majority. Minorities are merely tolerated, and this tolerance is presented as evidence of openness, even generosity. The current phase of the transitional regime is nothing more than a demand for forced allegiance (al-mubaayaa) to President Sharaa. It is with this sectarian vision of Syria that Sharaa sent in his troops, made up exclusively of former Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadists and rebel fighters once affiliated with Turkey, to invade Sweida. The bloodbath we're witnessing today was, unfortunately, predictable. And why? To impose his power on a province whose sole wealth is its educated population and its diaspora. Sweida has neither oil nor gas nor vital infrastructure. All government offices are already under the authority of Damascus' ministries. If residents refused the entry of security forces, it was because of the crimes committed on the coast last March against the Alawite minority, and the abuses suffered by the Druze in April and May, following the spread of a fake recording in which a Druze sheikh allegedly insulted the Prophet. It was probably the impunity for these earlier massacres that convinced the interim president that the invasion of Sweida would provoke little reaction. But these events deeply shocked the entire Druze community, who no longer wished to see those with blood on their hands inside their province. Upon arrival, regime troops targeted the men's beards and mustaches — an act of extreme humiliation — before massacring them. The trampling of Sultan Basha al-Atrash's portrait as troops entered Sweida is a powerful symbol. Al-Atrash, a hero of the Syrian revolt against the French mandate, embodies the Druze's belonging to the Syrian nation. By trampling this symbol, the new regime marks a rupture with post-independence Syria. They wish to rebuild a new Syrian identity fashioned after themselves: exclusive, homogeneous and authoritarian. The regime and its supporters are in total denial regarding the massacre that occurred. They shift the blame onto Sheikh al-Hijri and onto abuses committed by certain Druze militias against the region's Bedouins, forgetting that there can be no equivalence between the crimes of militiamen and those, based on religious criteria, perpetrated by a regular army meant to protect all citizens. Al-Hijri, a controversial Druze religious leader for his ties with Israeli Druze, has become the pretext for a widespread hate campaign against an entire community. 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Thursday, July 24, as the province of Sweida continued to agonize, Sharaa inaugurated projects as fanciful as they are unrealistic — like a media city estimated at $1.5 billion and an amusement park at $400 million — with a Saudi delegation, solely to make a starving population believe the future is bright. How can those who experienced Assad's sieges of Homs, Aleppo or Deraa now use the same methods against other Syrians? How could this government possibly heal a country wounded by 14 years of war, which Assad made sectarian, if it adopts these same mechanisms of division and hatred? Between 1,000 and 2,000 Syrians of all faiths have died in recent days. It's a national tragedy, just as the massacres on the coast were in March. Not acting accordingly is to plunge the country into a new cycle of violence. It would take a miracle for hope to be reborn in Syria. 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