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After Massacre of Syrian Druze, Netanyahu Tells Al-Sharaa Regime to Demilitarize Area Near Israeli Border

After Massacre of Syrian Druze, Netanyahu Tells Al-Sharaa Regime to Demilitarize Area Near Israeli Border

Netanyahu: “We will not allow military forces to descend south of Damascus.”
Posted by Thursday, July 17, 2025 at 05:00pm

After days of murderous attacks on the Druze minority by Syrian regime forces, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Islamist regime on Thursday that the area between Damascus and the Israeli border was off-limits for its military forces.

“We have set forth a clear policy: demilitarization of the region to south of Damascus, from the Golan Heights and to the Druze Mountain area,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a statement posted to his official website.

“That will also be our policy going forward — we will not allow Syrian army forces to enter the region south of Damascus, and will not allow any harm to the Druze at the Druze Mountain,” he added.

After four days of fighting, which saw the massacre of non-Muslim Druze civilians at the hands of the jihadist fighters dispatched by the Syrian regime, the death toll had risen to over 500.

“Residents in the southern Syrian city of Sweida, home to the country’s largest Druze community, began emerging Thursday to survey widespread destruction after five days of brutal fighting between Druze fighters, Bedouin militants and Syrian regime forces,” the Israeli news website Ynetnews reported Thursday. “More than 500 people were killed in the clashes, which included reports of massacres and acts of humiliation against Druze civilians by Sunni jihadist gunmen.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office posted the following statement on Thursday:

We have set forth a clear policy: demilitarization of the region to south of Damascus, from the Golan Heights and to the Druze Mountain area. That’s rule number one. Rule number two is protecting the brothers of our brothers, the Druze at the Druze Mountain.

Both those rules were broken by the regime in Damascus. The regime sent troops south of Damascus, into the region that has to be demilitarized, and began slaughtering the Druze. That we could not accept in any way, and I therefore directed the IDF to take action — and take powerful action. The Air Force attacked both the gangs of murderers and the armored vehicles. I added another target, to also attack the Ministry of Defense in Damascus.

As a result of that powerful action, a ceasefire came into force, and the Syrian forces retreated back to Damascus. That is important.

This is a ceasefire that was reached through strength. Not by making requests, not by begging — through strength. We are reaching peace through strength, quiet through strength, security through strength — on seven fronts.

That will also be our policy going forward — we will not allow Syrian army forces to enter the region south of Damascus, and will not allow any harm to the Druze at the Druze Mountain.

Deadly attacks on the Druze community only ended after an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday hit the regime’s military headquarters in the heart of Damascus, sending a clear message to the regime that Jerusalem was determined to protect the beleaguered religious minority in Syria.

“After Israel struck the Syrian Defense Ministry and military headquarters, Syrian government forces withdrew from the Druze region of Sweida,” the French newspaper Le Monde noted Thursday. “Israel aims to ban all Syrian military forces from the south of the country.”

Following the intervention of the Israeli military, the Syrian regime was forced to accept a U.S.-backed ceasefire and pull its jihadist fighters out of Druze-dominated areas in the south. “Syrian forces largely withdrew from the southern province of Sweida on Thursday following days of clashes with militias linked to the Druze minority,” the Associated Press reported.

The Israeli military was committed to removing any Islamist threat building up along the country’s border with Syria. “We will not allow southern Syria to become a terror stronghold. We will not rely on anyone else, we will defend the communities along the border. There is no room for disorder near the border fence,” the IDF’s Chief of the General Staff, Lt. General Eyal Zamir, said Wednesday while touring the Syrian border posts.

“We are acting decisively to prevent the entrenchment of hostile elements beyond the border, to protect the citizens of the State of Israel, and to prevent the harming of Druze civilians,” the IDF chief assured.

New Hamas terror chief changes appearance, gains weight in Gaza hiding, photos released by IDF show

Hamas’s new terrorist chief, Izz al-Din Haddad, has drastically changed his facial appearance and gained weight after months of hiding in Gaza, the latest photos revealed by the IDF show.

Izz al-Din Haddad, who was elevated to the post of Hamas’s “military” chief in Gaza after Mohammed Sinwar was killed in an Israeli strike two months ago, has dyed his gray beard in a desperate bid to avoid being spotted by the Israeli troops, the IDF’s Arabic language spokesman, Colonel Avichay Adraee, observed on Twitter/X.

The fact that the new Hamas chief has gained weight while hiding in the terror tunnels debunks the terror group’s bogus claims of “famine” in Gaza. The Hamas terror chief was “far from the hunger and suffering experienced by” the Gazans, the IDF spokesman added.

While hoarding food and fuel in terror tunnels, Hamas has been trying to disrupt the delivery of aid through the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Despite a series of Hamas terror attacks on GHF distribution centers and workers, the latest media reports show that the organization delivered more than 74 million meals since launching its operations in late May.

The Times of Israel reported:

The IDF publishes new photos of Hamas’s de facto leader in the Gaza Strip, Izz al-Din Haddad, saying that the terror commander “disguised his identity.”

Haddad is the commander of Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade, and following the death of Muhammad Sinwar in May he became the new head of the terror group in the Strip.

The photos of Haddad were found by troops in a Hamas tunnel underneath the European Hospital in Khan Younis, where Sinwar was killed, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Col. Avichay Adraee, says on X.

“The drastic change in his appearance, as shown in the photo, indicates only one thing: deep fear and a desire to disguise and disappear,” Adraee says.

“While Hamas promotes the narrative of ‘famine’ to the world, it seems that Haddad remained safe from it, far from the hunger and suffering experienced by the residents of the Strip,” he continues.

“Haddad is the last remaining leader of the leadership that led Gaza to destruction and contributed to the collapse of the entire Iranian axis. Is it shame from the devastation left behind by Hamas that pushed him to change his face and disguise his identity?” Adraee adds.

IDF eliminates naval commander in Hezbollah’s terrorist Radwan Force

As part of the ongoing operation against terrorist build-up in southern Lebanon, the IDF eliminated the naval commander of Hezbollah’s terrorist Radwan Force.

On Thursday, “the IDF struck and eliminated the terrorist Hassan Ahmad Sabra, a Naval Commander in Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, in the area of Kfour in southern Lebanon,” the military said in a statement.

Another Hezbollah operative, working to rebuild the terrorist group in southern Lebanon, was also killed in a separate Israeli strike. “Additionally, a Hezbollah terrorist involved in attempts to reestablish terror infrastructure in the Al-Naqoura area in southern Lebanon was struck and eliminated,” the IDF disclosed Thursday. “The IDF will continue to operate in order to remove any threat posed to the state of Israel.”

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Comments

JohnSmith100 | July 17, 2025 at 5:36 pm

Izz al-Din Haddad is fattening himself up for slaughter. He knows what is coming.

JackinSilverSpring | July 17, 2025 at 5:37 pm

Silence from all those who have defamed Israel. I guess Muslims get a pass when they kill others.

DaveGinOly | July 17, 2025 at 5:50 pm

It’s important for Israel to defend the Druze. If the Druze are eliminated or displaced, it would permit Syrian forces to operate against the IDF in the Golan without fear of having their rear areas molested.
(Take this comment any way you wish.)

guyjones | July 17, 2025 at 6:55 pm

So predictable and contemptible that the perpetually outraged and sanctimonious European, leftist dhimmis and American Dhimmi-crats have no outrage or condemnations to offer regarding the Islamofascist/terrorist Syrian leader’s and his regime’s massacre and atrocities visited against non-Muslim religious minorities.

Dhimmis and Dhimmi-crats are complicit in these crimes, by turning a blind eye (as per usual) to Muslim terrorism, genocides and atrocities.

destroycommunism | July 17, 2025 at 8:40 pm

and like a good neighbor

netanyahu is there

your in good arms druze people

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