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Israel launches airstrikes near Syria presidential palace in Damascus Israel launches airstrikes near Syrian presidential palace in Damascus
(about 4 hours later)
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will not allow Syrian forces to deploy south of Damascus or threaten Druze community Benjamin Netanyahu says strike intended to deter Syria’s new leadership from any hostile move against the Druze
Israel attacked a target near the presidential palace in the Syrian capital, Damascus, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early on Friday, reiterating his vow to protect members of the Druze community. Israel’s air force launched airstrikes against unidentified targets near Syria’s presidential palace, in what Israeli officials said was a warning to the Syrian government after days of bloody clashes near Damascus between pro-government militia and fighters from the Druze minority sect
It marks the second time Israel has struck Syria in as many days, following through on a promise to defend the minority group, which was involved in sectarian violence against Sunni gunmen earlier this week. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and the defence minister, Israel Katz, said in a joint statement that the strike early on Friday, the second this week in Syria, was intended to deter the country’s new leadership from any hostile move against the Druze.
The Druze adhere to a faith that is an offshoot of Islam and have followers in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. “This is a clear message to the Syrian regime. We will not allow the deployment of forces south of Damascus or any threat to the Druze community,” a statement released by the Israeli government said.
The strikes reflect Israel’s deep mistrust of the Sunni Islamists who toppled Bashar al-Assad in December, posing a further challenge to interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s efforts to establish control over the fractured nation. The Israeli army confirmed in a statement that fighter jets struck adjacent to the area of the palace of President Hussein al-Sharaa in Damascus but gave no further details.
“Israel struck last night near the presidential palace in Damascus,” Netanyahu said in a joint statement with defence minister Israel Katz. “This is a clear message to the Syrian regime: We will not allow [Syrian] forces to deploy south of Damascus or any threat to the Druze community.” The clashes broke out on Tuesday after an audio clip circulated on social media of a man making derogatory comments about the prophet Muhammad. The clip, which was attributed to a Druze cleric, angered many Sunni Muslims, but may have been fabricated.
The Israeli military said in a statement it struck “adjacent to the area of the Palace of Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa in Damascus”, without specifying the target. There was no immediate comment from Syria’s authorities. A UK-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said 56 people in Sahnaya and the Druze-majority Damascus suburb of Jaramana were killed in clashes, including both local armed fighters and security forces.
Since Assad was ousted in December, Israel has seized ground in the south-west, vowed to protect the Druze, lobbied Washington to keep the neighbouring state weak, and has blown up much of the Syrian army’s heavy weapons in the days after he was toppled. On Thursday, Syria’s Druze spiritual leader, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, accused Syria’s government, which is mostly made up of radical Islamist groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, of what he called an “unjustified genocidal attack” on the minority community.
Sharaa, who was an al-Qaida commander before renouncing ties to the group in 2016, has repeatedly vowed to govern Syria in an inclusive way. But incidents of sectarian violence, including the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, have hardened fears among minority groups about the now dominant Islamists. The Druze religious sect began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria, largely in the southern Sweida province and some suburbs of Damascus.
This week’s sectarian violence began on Tuesday with clashes between Druze and Sunni gunmen in the predominantly Druze area of Jaramana, sparked by a voice recording cursing the Prophet Mohammad and which the Sunni militants suspected was made by a Druze. Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 war and annexed in 1981.
More than a dozen people were reported killed on Tuesday, before the violence spread to the mainly Druze town of Sahnaya on Damascus’ outskirts on Wednesday. The Syrian government has denied that any of its security forces were involved in the clashes with the Druze, which follow a wave of massacres in March in which security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,700 civilians, mostly from Assad’s Alawite community, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Asaad al-Shaibani, the Syrian foreign minister, on Thursday called for “national unity” as “the solid foundation for any process of stability or revival”.
“Any call for external intervention, under any pretext or slogan, only leads to further deterioration and division,” he wrote on X.
At a meeting of Druze leaders, elders and armed groups in the southern Syrian city of Sweida, the community agreed it was “an inseparable part of the unified Syrian homeland” and rejected “partition, separation or disengagement”, a spokesperson said.
Since the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in December, Israel has launched repeated airstrikes into Syria, destroying military hardware and stockpiles, and in what it says is defence of the Druze. Israel has also sent troops to what was a demilitarised zone in the Golan Heights, on Syria’s south-west border with Israel, seizing key strategic terrain where Syrian troops were once deployed.
Analysts in Israel say the strategy aims to undermine the new Syrian government while also protecting and so co-opting a potential proxy ally within the country. The strategy is controversial, however, with some officials arguing that a stable Syria would better serve Israel’s interests.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, the Syrian president, told a visiting US congressman last week that Damascus seeks to normalise ties with Israel.
Protesters from the Druze community in Israel temporarily blocked roads on Thursday night and called for the Israeli government to protect the Druze community in Syria.
Underlining the regional dimension of the ongoing conflicts involving Israel, warning alarms sounded across much of northern Israel on Friday before air defence systems on Friday intercepted a missile that military officials said had been launched from Yemen.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have repeatedly targeted Israel since the outbreak of the war in Gaza 18 months ago.