The violence in Suwayda, where the Syrian Druze are concentrated, killed about 100 people in the past few days, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It said Druze battled with tribal fighters as well as state military and police forces.
The roughly 700,000-strong Druze community in Syria has forged closer ties with Israel — which has about 150,000 Druze — since the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December. They have feared a sectarian backlash from Islamist militants allied with the new administration of President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
The Druze are Arabs whose faith is an offshoot of Islam. There are 1 million of them, living mostly in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Druze men who are Israeli citizens do military service and, with their Arabic on the one hand and loyalty to the Israeli state on the other, often rise high in the ranks.
There are around 20,000 Druze in the Golan Heights, which Israel conquered from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981. Most of those Druze identify more with Syria than Israel, although there have been signs of that changing among the younger generations.
Yet in the past month Israel said it was open to a peace deal with Damascus, something that seemed to be given impetus by US President Donald Trump ending sanctions on the Syrian government.
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