The Israeli army bombed the surroundings of the Damascus Presidential Palace after threatening reprisals against the Syrian government if it did not protect the Drusa minority in the mortal sectarian clashes that shake the country.
It happened on the morning of this Friday, May 2 (Night of May 1 in Ecuador) after an alleged threat of Syrian authorities to the Drusa community of the south of the country.
More than one hundred people died in the last two days in clashes between Druzos and armed groups linked to Sunni power that knocked down almost five months ago to the repressive regime of Bashar al Asad.
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«This is a clear message to the Syrian regime. We will not allow forces to be sent south of Damascus or threaten the Drusa community ».
Benjamín Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel
The spiritual leader of the minority Drusa denounced on Thursday a “genocidal campaign” against this esoteric religious community derived from Chiita Islam and claimed “an immediate intervention of international forces.”
Israel, with an important Drusa minority, fulfilled Friday at dawn with his threat of reprisals and announced a bombing near the presidential palace of Ahmed al Sharaa, the Islamist leader who assumed power after overthrowing the Asad.
“Combat aircraft attacked the surroundings of the palace,” the Israeli army wrote in a message from Telegram.
Hours before, Defense Minister Israel Katz had warned that “if the attacks against the drusites resume and the Syrian regime fails to prevent them, Israel will respond with a significant force.”
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“Genocidal campaign”
The confrontations near the capital, Damascus, and in the south of the country between Druzos and armed groups linked to the new rulers illustrate persistent instability in Syria after 14 years of civil war.
These clashes caused at least 102 dead in the last two days, said the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (OSDH), an Oenegé based in the United Kingdom but with a wide network of sources in Syria.
Among them are 30 security members and affiliated combatants, 21 Druss militia and 10 civilians who died in Jaramana and Sahnaya, near Damascus.
In the province of Sueida, a bastion of the Drusa community near Israel, another 40 Druss combatants died on Wednesday, 35 of them in an ambush, according to the OSDH.
The spiritual leader Druso, Sheikh Hikmat al Hajri denounced an “unjustified genocidal campaign” and lashed out at the president to Sharaa.
“A government does not kill its people using its own extremist militias, to say after the massacres that the fault is of uncontrolled elements,” he said. “A government protects its people.”
The head of the Damascus diplomacy, Asaad al Shaibani, replied that “any call to a foreign intervention, under any pretext or slogan, will lead to a deterioration of the situation and more divisions.”
“More divisions”
The UN urged “all parties to show the greatest prudence” and the United States reproached as “unacceptable” the “recent violence and incendiary rhetoric directed against members of the Drusa community in Syria.”
The fighting in Jaramana and Sahnaya, where Christians and Druzos live, and in the southern province of Sueida they remembered the massacres that at the beginning of March left a balance of 1,700 dead in the west of the country, mostly members of the alauita minority to which Bashar al Asad belonged.
Violence in that mountainous and coastal zone was precipitated by attacks by men related to the Clan to the Asad against security forces.
This week’s fighting began on Monday with an attack by armed groups related to power in Jaramana, after spreading on social networks an audio message attributed to a Druso, and considered blasphemous to the prophet Muhammad. The AFP could not verify the authenticity of the message in question.
Israel, through its Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, urged the international community on Thursday to “fulfill its role protecting minorities in Syria – especially the Druss – of the regime and their terrorist bands.”
The Druss are numerous in the Golán highs, which Israel snatched Syria in the six -day war in 1967, and since then keeps busy.
From the outbreak of the war in Syria, Israel has bombarded this country with which it remains technically in war. These attacks intensified with the arrival of the new rulers, arising from a rebel coalition led by Islamists.
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