As the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) moves to secure a buffer zone on the Syrian border, the local Druze community in the area is demanding to be annexed by Israel.
In a video posted on X, a Druze leader is seen addressing a community gathering, urging Israel to exert its sovereignty over the territory.
“We asked to be annexed to the Golan to preserve our dignity,” the Druze speaker said. He feared that resurgent Islamist fighters “might take our women, might take our daughters, they might take our houses.”
“We ask in the name of all the surrounding area to join our people in the Golan, and to live with freedom and dignity like our people are living (in Israel),” he urged.
The video highlights that the Druze, who follow an Abrahamic religion separate from Islam, would prefer to live under Israeli law instead of under the rule of jihadi groups vying for power in Syria after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The Times of Israel reported Friday:
An unverified video circulating on social media purports to show a member of the Druze community in the southern Syrian village of Hader calling for the community to be annexed to the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.Although the speech is in Arabic, a version of the video was posted on X with English captions.Speaking to a large crowd, the man tells them to consider what they want their future to look like following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime earlier this week.“If we have to choose, we will choose the lesser evil,” he says. “And even if it’s considered evil to ask to be annexed to the [Israeli] Golan, it’s a much lesser evil than the evil coming our way.”He appears to be referring to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the largest of Syria’s rebel groups, which has its roots in al-Qaeda (…).“That evil might take our women, might take our daughters, they might take our houses,” he says, according to the captions.“Bashar al-Assad left,” he continues. “What do we have left? Nothing.”“We asked to be annexed to the Golan to preserve our dignity,” he says, adding that he speaks for the Druze community across the surrounding area of the Quneitra Governorate.“We ask in the name of all the surrounding area to join our people in the Golan, and to live with freedom and dignity like our people are living [in Israel].He calls for the Syrian Druze to be freed from the “injustice and oppression” that was first imposed on them by the Assad regime, and which they fear will soon be imposed on them again by the Islamist rebel groups.
The Druze population, largely Arabic-speaking, is concentrated around the Golan Heights region — divided between Syria and Israel. Israel is home to around 140,000 Druze, many of them living in the Golan region.
Members of this small minority, which make up less than two percent of the Israeli population, have distinguished themselves in the Jewish State’s military, social, and cultural life.
The IDF continued to build trenches and obstacles in the Syrian buffer zone in an effort to make the Israeli border secure from future hostile incursions. The troops were “strengthening the engineering barrier on the Syrian border and continuing its defensive missions to ensure the security of Israeli citizens, particularly the residents of the Golan Heights,” the military assured in a statement Friday.
Israeli combat troops and engineers were “conducting defensive missions in the Area of Separation in Syrian territory and along the border,” the military revealed.
The Israeli “troops have been deployed to strategic positions in the Area of Separation to strengthen defense in the area,” the IDF added. “During scans, IDF paratroopers located a variety of weapons, including anti-tank missiles, military vests, ammunition, and additional military equipment.”
On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israeli will temporarily hold the buffer zone to prevent jihadi groups from filling the vacuum created by Assad’s fall.
The Israeli military was conducting counter-terrorism operations in southern Lebanon as Hezbollah continued hostile activities in the area despite a U.S.-backed ceasefire.
The IDF was “continuing operational activities to neutralize threats from Hezbollah terror sites near the border with Israel in southern Lebanon,” the Israeli military said in a press release Friday.
“During these activities, the soldiers discovered a large cache of weapons, including concealed Kornet missile launchers, AK-47 rifles, magazines, other military equipment and missiles hidden in dense, and mountainous terrain,” the IDF revealed.
“The troops also located and confiscated an anti-tank missile launch site used by Hezbollah to fire at communities in the Upper Galilee over the past year,” the military said.
The troops “deployed in southern Lebanon and along the border, [were] conducting operational activities to eliminate threats to Israeli citizens, while acting in accordance with the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon,” the IDF assured.
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