Syrian government officials and leaders in the Druze religious minority have announced a renewed ceasefire after days of clashes that threatened to unravel the country’s postwar political transition and drew military intervention by Israel.
Convoys of government forces began withdrawing from the city of Sweida, but it was not immediately clear if the agreement, announced by Syria’s Interior Ministry and in a video message by a Druze religious leader, would hold.
A previous ceasefire announced on Tuesday, local time, quickly fell apart, and prominent Druze leader, Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hijri, disavowed the new agreement.
Israeli strikes continued after the ceasefire announcement.
Rare Israeli air strikes in the heart of Damascus
The announcement came after Israel launched rare air strikes in the heart of Damascus, an escalation in a campaign that it said was intended to defend the Druze and push Islamic militants away from its border.
The Druze form a substantial community in Israel as well as in Syria and are seen in Israel as a loyal minority, often serving in the military.
The escalation in Syria began with tit-for-tat kidnappings and attacks between local Sunni Bedouin tribes and Druze armed factions in the southern province of Sweida.
Druze from Syria and Israel protest on the Israeli-Syrian border, in Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. (AP: Leo Correa)
Government forces that intervened to restore order clashed with the Druze militias, but also, in some cases, attacked civilians.
The violence appeared to be the most serious threat yet to efforts by Syria’s new rulers to consolidate control of the country after a rebel offensive led by Islamist insurgent groups ousted longtime despotic leader Bashar Assad in December, ending a nearly 14-year civil war.
Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa called the Druze an integral part of Syria and denounced Israel’s actions as sowing division, in state television footage shown on early Thursday.
“We affirm that protecting your rights and freedoms is among our top priorities,” he said, specifically addressing Druze people in Syria.
“We reject any attempt — foreign or domestic — to sow division within our ranks. We are all partners in this land, and we will not allow any group to distort the beautiful image that Syria and its diversity represent.”
He said Israel sought to break Syrian unity and turn the country into a theatre of chaos, but that Syrians were rejecting division.
Why Israel is conducting air strikes in Syria
He said Syrians did not fear renewed war but sought the path of Syrian interest over destruction.
“We assigned local factions and Druze spiritual leaders the responsibility of maintaining security in [Sweida], recognising the gravity of the situation and the need to avoid dragging the country [into a new war],” he said.
Syria’s new, primarily Sunni Muslim authorities have faced suspicion from religious and ethnic minorities, especially after clashes between government forces and pro-Assad armed groups in March spiralled into sectarian revenge attacks.
Hundreds of civilians from the Alawite religious minority, to which Assad belongs, were killed.
No official casualty figures have been released for the latest fighting since Monday, when the Interior Ministry said 30 people had been killed.
The UK-based war monitor, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said more than 300 people had been killed as of Wednesday morning, local time, including four children, eight women, and 165 soldiers and security forces.
Israel threatens further escalation
Israel has launched dozens of strikes targeting government troops and convoys heading into Sweida, and on Wednesday, struck the Syrian Defense Ministry headquarters next to a busy square in Damascus that became a gathering point after Assad’s fall.
That strike killed three people and injured 34, Syrian officials said. Another Israeli strike hit near the presidential palace in the hills outside Damascus.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said after the initial Damascus air strike in a post on X that the “painful blows have begun.”
Israel struck the Syrian Defense Ministry building in Damascus on Wednesday. (AP: Ghaith Alsayed)
Israel has taken an aggressive stance toward Syria’s new leaders, saying it doesn’t want Islamist militants near its borders. Israeli forces have seized a UN-patrolled buffer zone on Syrian territory along the border with the Golan Heights and launched hundreds of air strikes on military sites in Syria.
Mr Katz said in a statement that the Israeli army “will continue to attack regime forces until they withdraw from the area — and will also soon raise the bar of responses against the regime if the message is not understood”.
An Israeli military official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations said the army was preparing for a “multitude of scenarios” and that a brigade, normally comprising thousands of soldiers, was being pulled out of Gaza and sent to the Golan Heights.
Syria’s Defense Ministry had earlier blamed militias in the Druze-majority area of Sweida for violating the ceasefire agreement reached on Tuesday.
Reports of killings and looting in Druze areas
Videos surfaced on social media of government-affiliated fighters forcibly shaving the moustaches of Druze sheikhs and stepping on Druze flags and pictures of religious clerics. Other videos showed Druze fighters beating captured government forces and posing by their bodies.
AP reporters in the area saw burned and looted houses.
The observatory said at least 27 people were killed in “field executions”.
Druze in the Golan gathered along the border fence to protest the violence against Druze in Syria.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that Washington was “very concerned” about the Israel-Syria violence, which he attributed to a “misunderstanding,” and has been in touch with both sides to restore calm.
AP
