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Druze, Syria and Israel
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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, said the clashes started after members of a Bedouin tribe in Sweida province set up a checkpoint where they attacked and robbed a Druze man, leading to tit-for-tat attacks and kidnappings between the tribes and Druze armed groups.
Israel said it "struck the entrance of the Syrian regime's military headquarters" and warns of more "painful blows".
Israel carried out a series of powerful strikes on the Syrian capital Damascus Wednesday, escalating a campaign it says is in support of an Arab minority group involved in deadly clashes with Syrian government forces.
Clashes between Syrian government forces and Druze armed groups have escalated, drawing Israeli intervention and raising fears of a breakdown in the country’s fragile postwar order. The fighting intensified this week in Sweida province after a robbery at a checkpoint led to tit-for-tat attacks.
Secretary of State Rubio says the U.S. is "very concerned" by expanding Israeli strikes targeting Syria's new government, and he wants "the fighting to stop."
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the Damascus headquarters served as a command center for deploying regime forces to Suwayda, a southern Syrian region gripped by days of deadly clashes between government troops, Druze militias, and Bedouin groups.
"Silence and standing idly by are no longer an option,” Druze leader Sheikh Mowafak Tarif wrote. Israel's Druze spiritual leadership called on its community to prepare to assist their Syrian counterparts “by all means necessary,
As of Wednesday morning, clashes between Syrian government troops and local Druze fighters resumed just hours after a ceasefire was announced.
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