Safia K. Southey & Adam
Weinstein
Jerusalem
is bombing Damascus and threatening al-Sharaa's rule, while Washington was
hoping to help the nascent government on its feet
Israeli jets and drones hit
Syria’s Defence Ministry compound and a second target near the presidential
palace in central Damascus on July 16, causing a massive explosion and killing
at least one and wounding 18, according to the Syrian Health Ministry.
Israel framed the attack as a
warning to protect Syria’s Druze minority and warned that further “painful
blows” would follow unless Syrian troops and allied militias withdraw from the
south. Why would Israel bomb an important government building in Damascus
purportedly on behalf of the Druze?
The Druze, a religious minority
that is ethnically Arab, number about one million worldwide, roughly 700,000 of
which live in Syria’s Suwayda governorate. Some 150,000 Druze hold Israeli
citizenship and serve in the IDF, while another 20,000 Druze in the Israeli‑occupied Golan largely retain
Syrian identity.
Parts of these constituencies
have pressed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to act but Israel has its own
motivations, including the preservation of a Druze-dominated buffer zone in the
south of Syria to insulate it from the new Syrian government which it views
with great suspicion. Al-Sharaa’s government has adopted a congenial attitude
towards Israel and expressed that it does not seek conflict. But the prevailing
perspective in Israel is that al-Sharaa is attempting to consolidate power, and
once he does, he may return to his jihadist roots.
This is one reason that
immediately following the collapse of the Assad regime, Israel bombed much of
Syria’s conventional military capacity. Another reason for the strike is that
Israel likens itself as the protector of the Druze, both because there are
Druze Israelis, and also because it supports Israel’s image as a multicultural
society within a Jewish state.
Israel’s strike followed a week
of heavy fighting in Suwayda that has left hundreds dead, including reported
summary executions and a massacre at a hospital. The latest flare‑up began when Bedouin gunmen
kidnapped and robbed a Druze vegetable merchant at an improvised checkpoint on
the Damascus–Suwayda
highway. Tit‑for‑tat abductions escalated into
firefights, with Damascus insisting that it is fighting “outlaw gangs,” while Druze militias say
government artillery and Bedouin auxiliaries have been firing indiscriminately.
A ceasefire announced late on
July 15 collapsed within hours as artillery fire resumed. Druze cleric Sheikh
Yousef Jarbou and Syria’s Interior Ministry announced a fresh truce midday on
the 16th that allows government checkpoints to remain, although whether
hard-line Druze factions will accept it remains unclear. The Druze faction led
by Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri released a statement that reaffirmed the community’s
right to self-defense.
Simultaneously, Israel is
redeploying forces: a military spokesman said units now operating in Gaza are
being shifted to the Golan frontier and additional battalions are on standby
for “several days of fighting” along the Syrian border.
This escalation threatens
Washington’s nascent normalization track with Syria’s interim president, and
former jihadist Ahmed al‑Sharaa.
President Trump publicly courted Sharaa in Riyadh in May, providing sanctions
relief and a future place in the Abraham Accords, a plan now in doubt after
Israel’s
strike on Damascus.
U.S. Special Envoy for Syria and
Ambassador to Türkiye Thomas Barrack has been meeting regularly with Ahmad
al-Sharaa and urging Syria’s minority groups to accept the authority of the
central government in Damascus. With Israel signaling more action, the risk of
a broader Israel‑Syria
confrontation is rising fast, however, Washington appears to be working toward
de-escalation in the background.
The Trump administration clearly
wants the new government in Damascus to succeed as evidenced by its removal of
all sanctions and strong statements of support for Syrian unification under
Damascus. The fact Washington’s closest partner in the Middle East is now
bombing Syria is not conducive to Washington’s aims there and it is likely
scrambling to ensure things don’t go from bad to worse. Whether this strike in
Damascus will shake the al-Sharaa government into withdrawing from Suwayda
remains to be seen.
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