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Home World News Middle East

Israel says it’s allowing Syrian forces to enter Sweida for 48 hours amid renewed clashes

July 18, 2025
in Middle East
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Israel says it's allowing Syrian forces to enter Sweida for 48 hours amid renewed clashes
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Israel said Friday it was allowing Syrian security forces to enter the Sweida Governorate for 48 hours, citing the ongoing unrest in southern Syria.

“In light of the ongoing instability in southwest Syria, Israel has agreed to allow limited entry of the [Syrian] internal security forces into Sweida district for the next 48 hours,” an official who declined to be named told reporters.

Deadly violence has plagued Sweida province since Sunday, as Druze fighters clashed with Sunni Bedouin tribes, who were later joined by government forces. The Syrian Network for Human Rights monitoring group said it had documented 254 dead in four days of fighting, among them medical personnel, women, and children.

Israel’s own Druze community demanded that Jerusalem act to protect their brethren across the border, as reports emerged from Sweida of regime forces killing women and boys, looting homes, and shaving Druze clerics’ mustaches. Videos also showed Druze fighters beating captured government forces and posing by their bodies.

Syrian troops withdrew from Sweida after a truce was announced on Wednesday, but clashes resumed late on Thursday between fighters from Bedouin tribes and the Druze, who are part of a religious minority in Syria that has followers in Lebanon and Israel. The clashes in parts of Sweida province continued into Friday, according to residents of Sweida and Ryan Marouf, the head of local news outlet Sweida24.

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Jerusalem has said it would not allow regime military forces south of Damascus following the violence, which could be the reason the Prime Minister’s Office referred to “internal” security in its statement.

Seemingly contradicting the PMO’s comments, Syria’s interior ministry spokesperson said government forces were not preparing to deploy to Sweida, the state news agency reported. Noureddin al-Baba denied an earlier Reuters report citing an interior ministry media officer as saying security forces were preparing to redeploy there to quell the fresh fighting involving Bedouin tribes and the Druze, part of a religious minority in Syria that has followers in Lebanon and Israel.

This aerial photograph shows smoke rising above buildings in al-Mazraa village in Syria’s southern Sweida governorate as clashes between fighters from Bedouin tribes and Druze gunmen continue on July 18, 2025 (OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)

This week’s clashes drew in Israel, which hit Syrian troops in Sweida and Syria’s defense ministry in airstrikes, and struck close to the presidential palace in Damascus.

Syrian troops withdrew from Sweida after the truce was announced, but clashes resumed late on Thursday between the tribal Bedouin fighters and the Druze.

Earlier on Friday, the Israeli army denied reports on the Syrian state news agency, SANA, that it had conducted additional strikes near Sweida on Thursday night.

Describing Syria’s new rulers as barely disguised jihadists, Israel has vowed to shield the area’s Druze community from attack, prodded by calls from Israel’s own Druze minority.

Its deep distrust of Syria’s new Islamist-led leadership appears to be at odds with the United States, which said it did not support recent Israeli strikes on Syria.

The US intervened to help secure the truce between government forces and Druze fighters.

Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has worked to establish warmer ties with the US, accused Israel of trying to fracture Syria and promised to protect its Druze minority.

Israel said Friday it was sending humanitarian aid to Sweida province.

Fighters from Bedouin tribes ride motorcycles along a road in al-Mazraa village in Syria’s southern Sweida governorate, as clashes with Druze gunmen continue on July 18, 2025 (OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)

“In light of the recent attacks targeting the Druze community in Sweida and the severe humanitarian situation in the area, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has ordered the urgent transfer of humanitarian aid to the Druze population in the region,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The NIS 2 million ($600,000) package includes food parcels and medical supplies, the ministry said, noting it had previously sent humanitarian aid to the Druze in Syria in March.

The head of the UN human rights office on Friday urged Syria’s interim authorities to ensure accountability and justice for what it said were credible reports of widespread rights violations during the fighting, including summary executions and kidnappings, the office said in a statement.

At least 13 people were unlawfully killed in one recorded incident on July 15 when affiliates of the interim authorities opened fire at a family gathering, the OHCHR said. Six men were summarily executed near their homes the same day.

The UN refugee agency on Friday urged all sides to allow humanitarian access, which it said had been curtailed by the violence.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel will continue to use military means to enforce its two red lines in Syria — the demilitarization of the area south of Damascus, near Israel’s border, and the protection of the country’s Druze minority there.

Fighters from Bedouin tribes gather near camouflaged vehicles along a road in al-Mazraa village leading to the predominantly Druze city of Sweida in southern Syria on July 18, 2025 (Sam HARIRI / AFP)

Netanyahu said the Damascus regime, led by Sharaa, violated both those red lines in recent days.

“It sent an army south of Damascus, into the area that should be demilitarized, and it began to massacre the Druze. We could not accept this in any way,” he said in a video statement.

The premier added that the ceasefire Sharaa announced in Sweida, which included the withdrawal of regime troops, “was achieved through force. Not through requests, not through pleas — through force.”

“We acted, and we will continue to act as necessary,” Netanyahu promised.

Israel attacked military facilities and operatives of the Syrian regime on Wednesday, demanding that regime troops withdraw from Sweida, to which they had deployed during sectarian fighting between Druze and Bedouins, which are reported to have initially broken out after a Druze vegetable vendor was assaulted by Bedouin gunmen on Sunday.

In a press conference Thursday evening, Israel Defense Forces Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin acknowledged that the IDF had been unprepared to handle the chaos on the Syrian border in recent days during the Sweida conflict.

Around 1,000 Druze crossed from Israel into Syria, and dozens of Syrian Druze entered Israel, at the time of the fighting — leading several Druze Israeli lawmakers to themselves enter Syria to call on Israeli Druze to return to Israel.

Defrin said the IDF “were not prepared for thousands of Israeli citizens who reached the border and tried to pass it,” adding, “We are learning lessons.”

Druze in Israel protest near the Israeli-Syrian border fence in solidarity with Druze in Syria, July 16, 2025. (Michael Giladi/Flash90)

Police said they arrested two Druze Israelis at the Syrian border on Thursday morning, as they tried to reenter Israeli territory with a Kalashnikov rifle. The two young men — ages 18 and 20, from the villages of Kisra and Beit Jann —  crossed into Syria on Wednesday.

Police said that they patched up breaches on the Israel-Syria border and are currently working with local Druze leaders to facilitate the return of Israelis who crossed into Syria, and vice versa.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s interim government has had troubled relations with ethnic and religious minority groups since it came to power in December.

March saw massacres of more than 1,700 mostly Alawite civilians in their hub on the Mediterranean coast, with government-affiliated groups blamed for most of the killings.

Government forces also battled Druze fighters in Sweida province and near Damascus in April and May, leaving more than 100 people dead.

Israel, which is home to around 150,000 Druze, many of whom serve in the IDF, has repeatedly stated its intention to defend Syria’s Druze community.

The IDF, which has taken control of the UN-monitored demilitarized zone on the Golan Heights and conducted hundreds of strikes on military targets in Syria, also says it will not allow any Syrian military presence in the south.

Despite having initiated contact with a first face-to-face meeting in Azerbaijan earlier this month, Israel remains extremely wary of Syria’s new rulers, including Sharaa, whose Hayat Tahrir al-Sham movement was once linked to al-Qaeda.

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