Residents of Daraa city after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. PHOTO: Mahmoud Sulaiman on Unsplash
Trigger Warning
This article contains discussions of sensitive and potentially distressing topics, including violent crime. Reader discretion is strongly advised. If you find these subjects upsetting or triggering, please consider whether continuing is right for you.
After 13 brutal years of war, the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December, following a flash offensive by Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), a breakaway faction of Al Qaeda, felt like a long-awaited victory for many Syrians.
The authoritarian state that had ruled through fear, censorship, and brutality had finally fallen. Relief bloomed, and along with it, hope for a new beginning, not dictated by differences but by unity. But, that moment of relief was short-lived.
Sectarian tensions have always been present beneath the surface of Syrian society, but only began to become more overt following the appointment of Syria’s new government, led by interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa. Fears of renewed sectarian violence quickly materialised. Just weeks ago, fierce clashes broke out in the city of Suweida, a majority Druze area in southern Syria, between Druze militias and armed Bedouin tribes. The initial violence left more than 30 dead and 100 wounded.
Current tensions between the two groups date back to 2000, following the killing of a Druze man by a Bedouin during a land dispute, which triggered protests that were later met with government repression. This latest wave of violence was reportedly sparked by the kidnapping of a Druze merchant at a checkpoint. The kidnapping spiralled into a chain of retaliatory attacks rooted in tribal and sectarian grievances, exacerbated by the fragility of a post-war environment and transitional government.
Who are the Druze?
The Druze are a small religious minority in Syria, known to be an offshoot of Islam, making up around 3% of Syria’s pre-war population of 24 million. Like other minority groups, the Druze have long had a complicated relationship with the Syrian state and regional politics.
Though they participated in anti-Assad protests during the early days of the Arab Spring, their communities were largely spared the worst of the war, unlike Sunni-majority areas like Damascus and Aleppo – until now.
That changed when Hikmat al-Hijri, a prominent Druze religious leader, publicly called on Israel to intervene and protect the Druze. His comments were met with immediate backlash from some within the community, with some labelling him an “unhinged warlord” and insisting he did not speak for them.
On the same day as al-Hijri’s plea, July 16, Israel launched aerial strikes on both Syrian government targets and Bedouin positions in Suweida. The Bedouins are traditionally nomadic tribes inhabiting the outskirts of Syrian cities. This mobility gave them greater freedom to escape escalating violence during the war, but also made it harder to avoid accusations of shifting loyalties.
The Israeli Defence Forces claimed the strikes conducted were to ‘protect the Druze’. However, far from helping, the timing and nature of Israel’s strikes, under the pretext of ‘protection’, only heightened tensions and undermined Syria’s newly gained post-Assad sovereignty. Israeli interference after a 13-year war led to public anger and sectarian insecurities being misdirected at the broader Druze community, who were blamed for inviting an occupying force to interfere.
Protection or provocation?
This, of course, wasn’t Israel’s first incursion into Syria’s internal affairs. Since the start of the war in 2011, Israel has repeatedly undermined Syrian sovereignty, from its longstanding occupation of the Golan Heights, to its covert support of various rebel groups. Reports have also alleged that Israel funded more than a dozen militias, including HTS, treated wounded fighters in Israeli hospitals on occupied Syrian land, and consistently carried out airstrikes on Syrian military bases.
By weakening and destabilising the Assad regime and supporting rebel factions, Israel hoped to push back against Iranian-backed militias and sabotage any possibility of Iran gaining more power or influence, and keep Syria fragmented. Some Suweida residents argue that Israel’s interest in Syria has never been about the freedom or safety of Syrians, but the security of its borders. These rebels, once aided by Israel, were only a means to an end: the end of Bashar al-Assad.
Sectarianism as a strategy
This strategy of sectarian puppeteering is not unique to Syria. In 2015, following a terrorist attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited France and encouraged French Jews to come “home” to Israel. He was then publicly rejected by some French Jews who broke into the French national anthem in defiance, rejecting the idea that their religion should negate their national identity.
Netanyahu’s urge for migration to Israel has been viewed by some as an attempt to isolate a religious group and redirect it toward Israel. The same pattern arguably plays out in Syria, where Israel’s actions have suggested its agenda focuses on fueling instability and encouraging fragmentation.
Daraa, Syria. PHOTO: Mahmoud Sulaiman on Unsplash
Restoring peace or fuelling division?
The Syrian security forces that emerged after Assad’s fall, made up of various rebel factions, were deployed to de-escalate and restore order. Instead of peacekeeping, these forces carried out their own share of sectarian abuses and executions. In Suweida, they conducted home invasions, publicly humiliated and violated Druze men by shaving their beards, a symbol of faith, and executed unarmed civilians.
In one video that spread across Syrian social media, three relatives, Moaz Arnous, Baraa Arnous, and their cousin Osama, were shot at as they desperately tried to climb over a balcony to escape. Another gruesome video showed a 60-year-old man being interrogated by armed men for his religion. He repeatedly insisted he was simply Syrian, and when he finally admitted to being Druze, he was shot dead.
Just a few months earlier, in March, massacres unfolded in the coastal provinces of Tartus and Lattakia, targeting Alawites, another Syrian minority group. Over 1,000 people were killed, among them children. Again, HTS-affiliated factions were implicated. Again, no one was held accountable.
Current situation
Since then, Bedouin families have been evacuated from Suwieda, and a ceasefire has been implemented on the 19th of July (although this has since been violated). Food, water, and medical supplies are dwindling, and the remaining Druze residents left behind are pleading for help.
New fears of further attacks now add to concerns about the humanitarian crisis. In one hospital, a volunteer medic was shot dead at point-blank range, an execution style killing captured on CCTV and now circulating across social media. Meanwhile, Syrian authorities have banned journalists from entering the city.
The reliance on CCTV footage or videos filmed by perpetrators themselves to document such human rights violations raise serious concerns about the scale of incidents that remain unrecorded. Amid growing distrust in the government’s handling of the investigation into the coastal massacres, now cited by the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry as acts likely constituting war crimes, the Syrian Network for Human Rights has called for an independent inquiry into the violence in Suweida.
Israel, meanwhile, continues to push further into southern Syria, even as it faces growing international backlash amidst its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza. The tide appears to be shifting: Denmark, which currently holds the European Union (EU) presidency, is considering sanctions against Israel, while countries such as France and Australia are moving toward recognising a Palestinian state.
Caught between internal violence and foreign intervention, hopes for change in Syria are quickly eroding. What was meant to be a new chapter has quickly reverted to old patterns and grievances. Sectarianism, weaponised by foreign actors and the absence of justice, remains one of the greatest ongoing threats to Syria’s future.
I strongly reject and object to the framing of Israel’s role in this article. There is little to no mention of the role of Druze within Israeli society and the over-representation of Druze in Israeli civic society in comparison to their demographic representation. Druze hold positions of seniority in defence and intelligence in Israel. Which surely holds some bearing in Israel’s response. Moreover the inclusion of the French attacks on the Jewish community as a way of displaying a pattern of Israel’s insertion in sectarian divides is wholly disingenuous and not reflective of the broader Jewish diaspora which has seen mass French immigration to Israel of Jews due to real persecution and threat experienced by Jews in France. I cannot really understand why the author felt the need to include this tidbit.