“Combat planes have struck the surroundings of the presidential palace” in Damascus, wrote the Israeli army on Telegram. Israel had threatened the Syrian government of reprisals if he did not protect the Druze minority supported by the Hebrew state.
The most influential Druze religious leader in Syria, Cheikh Hikmat al-Hajrin, had just denounced Thursday evening an “unjustified genocidal campaign” targeting “civilians” of his community, after denominational clashes earlier this week which left more than 100 dead according to an NGO.
Religious leader Druze had claimed “an immediate intervention by international forces” and Israel. The Hebrew state, close to Syria with which he was in a state of war, had immediately threatened to respond “forcefully” if Damascus did not protect this religious minority.
#Syria: people in #Damascus woke up to explosions this morning as Israeli warplanes struck a couple hundred meters behind the presidential palace.
This is the most direct Israeli threat towards the Syrian government as it seeks to resolve its conflict with Druze armed groups. pic.twitter.com/LBsM1TiS0C
– Thomas van Linge (@thomasvlinge) May 2, 2025
This strike is “a clear message sent to the Syrian regime. We will not allow Syrian forces to be dispatched south of Damascus or threaten any way the Druze community, “said in a statement, published in English by the newspaper Times of Israel, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and his Minister of Defense Israel Katz.
Clashes nearby and south of Damascus between Druzes fighters and armed groups linked to the Sunni power of the President Ahmad al-Chareh illustrate persistent instability in Syria, almost five months after the overthrow of its predecessor Bashar al-Assad, from the Alaouite minority.
“We no longer trust an entity that claims to be a government. A government does not kill its people by resorting to its own extremist militias, then, after the massacres, claiming that these are uncontrolled elements, “denounced the Sheikh Druze.
More than a hundred dead
Fighting this week in Jaramana and Sahnaya, where Christians and Druze live, as in Soueïda, a majority of Druze, woke up the specter of massacres which had left more than 1,700 dead in early March, in the vast majority of members of the Alaouite minority in the west of the country. These violence had been triggered by attacks by pro-Assad activists against the security forces of the new power.
Already Wednesday, the Israeli army had struck near Damascus, in the form of a “warning” against an “extremist group which was preparing to attack the Druze population of the city of Sahnaya”, according to Benyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister.
Druzes are a minority of Shiite Islam. Its members are divided between Lebanon, Syria and Israel. “We are an inalienable part of Syria,” said a spokesperson for the rally of religious authorities, traditional leaders and Armed groups in Soueïda, adding that the community rejected “any division” of the country.
The fighting in Syria was launched on Monday evening by an attack of armed groups affiliated to power against Jaramana, after the broadcast on the social networks of an audio message attributed to a Druze and judged blasphemous with regard to the Prophet Muhammad. For its part, the Syrian authorities accused elements that escape its control of having caused violence.
According to a report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), these clashes left 102 dead, including 30 members of the affiliated security forces and combatants, 21 Druzes and 11 civilians in Jaramana and Sahnaya. In the province of Soueïda, 40 Druzes fighters perished, including 35 in an ambush, according to the NGO.
The UN calls for restraint
The UN has urged “all parties to show maximum restraint” and American diplomacy has castigated “the last violence and incendiary rhetoric” “reprehensible and unacceptable” anti -Druzes “. France had condemnedThursday, “the deadly defeat violence against the Druzes in Syria” and called on all the Syrian and regional actors, including Israel, at the end of the clashes, in a declaration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
However in Jaramana, agreements between representatives of the Druze and power made it possible to restore calm on Tuesday evening, the same Wednesday evening in Sahnaya 15 km southwest of Damascus where security forces were deployed. And the Syrian power had reaffirmed its “firm commitment to protect all the components of the Syrian people, including the Druze community”.
From the fall of Bashar al-Assad on December 8, overthrown by a coalition of Islamist rebel factions led by Ahmad al-Chareh after more than 13 years of civil war, Israel has multiplied the gestures of opening towards the Druze, seeking, according to independent analyst Michael Horowitz, to manage allies in the South Syrian at a time when the future of this country remains uncertain.
