Despite repeated media reports of a ceasefire in southern Syria, the regime forces appear to be pushing ahead with their weeklong murderous campaign against the country’s non-Muslim Druze minority.
“Sectarian clashes escalated in Syria’s predominantly Druze region of Sweida on Saturday, with machinegun fire and mortar shelling ringing out after days of bloodshed,” Reuters reported Sunday.
“Reuters reporters heard gunfire from inside the city of Sweida and saw shells land in nearby villages,” the news agency added.
After a week of attacks by Syrian regime forces and affiliated jihadist groups on Syria’s non-Muslim Druze population, the death toll has risen to nearly 1000. On Sunday, the London-based Telegraph reported that “Syrian regime forces wearing Islamic State badges [carried] out bloody rampage,” based on eyewitness accounts.
“Government forces deployed earlier this week by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa were blamed for joining in attacks on the Druze. More than 900 people are reported to have been killed in the past week,” BBC reported Sunday. The British daily Guardian placed the death toll at 1000, citing the UK-based watchdog Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
The killing continues after Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday urged the Syrian leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to rein in the regime forces and jihadist fighters, who have been killing, raping, and displacing the Druze community in the south of the country.
“The rape and slaughter of innocent people which has and is still occurring must end,” Secretary Rubio wrote on X.
“If authorities in Damascus want to preserve any chance of achieving a unified, inclusive and peaceful Syria free of ISIS and of Iranian control they must help end this calamity by using their security forces to prevent ISIS and any other violent jihadists from entering the area and carrying out massacres,” he cautioned.
The Israeli news website Ynetnews, on Saturday, reported the Islamist campaign to murder, humiliate, and displace Syria’s Druze minority:
Additional testimony and footage emerged from the Druze stronghold in southern Syria showing abuses committed by Bedouin gunmen against local Druze. Among the most disturbing reports: the shaving off the mustaches and beards of elderly Druze sheikhs—a deliberate act of humiliation targeting those whom the jihadists consider apostates in Islam. (…)Sweida province, home to roughly 700,000 Druze, is concentrated around the Jabal al-Druze (Mountain of the Druze). Like other minority communities in Syria, the Druze feared the rise to power last December of jihadist leader Ahmad al‑Sharaa, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al‑Golani. Al‑Sharaa, with a background in al‑Qaida, led a surprise offensive that toppled the Assad regime after 14 years of civil war. (…)An AFP correspondent on Saturday saw dozens of torched homes and vehicles and armed men setting fire to shops after looting them. Thick smoke blanketed the skyline. Some Bedouin fighters were seen brandishing rifles and swords; one man displayed a pair of scissors used, he said, to shave the mustaches of Druze sheikhs. In footage from the city, a suspected jihadist fighter was seen throwing a Druze flag into a street fire.(…)“We’ve lost everything. Most of the people we know are dead—family, neighbors, everyone,” one local resident said. At Sweida’s central hospital, where more than 400 bodies have been brought in—including women and children—chaos reigned. Medical staff struggled to treat the wounded amid severe shortages of personnel and fuel. According to AFP, the hospital has begun burying bodies in a temporary mass grave after its morgue reached full capacity.
Earlier this week, Israel intervened militarily to protect the beleaguered Druze minority, carrying out strikes against the Syrian regime forces involved in the murderous campaign. On Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike hit the Syrian military headquarters, showing Jerusalem’s resolve to stand by the Druze.
Israel is home to some 150,000 Druze, a flourishing community serving in the armed forces, civil services, academia, and other walks of life.
(Link to tweet: https://x.com/jenanmoussa/status/1946622624412373416)
The Israeli military has issued new evacuation orders as it widens the operation in northern and central Gaza. “IDF troops continue to expand their operations in Gaza City,” the military announced on Sunday.
“The troops are expanding ground activities in the Jabaliya area and are operating against terrorist organizations in the area,” an IDF press release said. “So far, hundreds of terrorist infrastructure sites have been dismantled, numerous weapons have been located, and dozens of terrorists have been eliminated.”
Israeli ground troops were continuing to locate and destroy Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure, including the tunnel network. Combat Engineering troops of the 401st Brigade located and dismantled underground terror tunnels in the Jabaliya area, measuring 2.7 kilometers in length and approximately 20 meters in depth,” the Israeli military added. “Troops of the Southern Command continue to operate against terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip in order to protect Israeli civilians, and particularly the residents of the communities near the Gaza Strip.”
Bashar Thabet, a Hamas commander responsible for the terrorist group’s weapons development and rebuilding its stockpile, was eliminated in an Israeli strike earlier this month, the IDF disclosed on Sunday.
“On July 10th, 2025, the IDF struck and eliminated the terrorist Bashar Thabet in the area of Nuseirat. Thabet was a commander in Hamas’ Development and Projects Department, within its weapons production headquarters,” the military said. “The terrorist was responsible for research and development activities within Hamas’ weapons manufacturing apparatus, which operates to restore and increase the weapons stockpile of the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip.”
The Israeli Air Force struck additional terrorist targets across Gaza. “Additionally, the IAF struck approximately 75 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip in cooperation with ground troops. Among the targets struck were terrorists, military compounds, and additional terrorist infrastructure,” the IDF revealed on Sunday.
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