Israeli forces conducted airstrikes hundreds of feet from Syria’s presidential palace this week.
The bombing run took place on May 2. Leadership in Israel said the strikes were intended to prevent further attacks on the Druze minority religious group by Syria’s new leadership.
Syria’s government described the bombing as a “dangerous escalation” at a time of increased animosity between Damascus and Jerusalem.
Israel has escalated military operations in Syria since rebels ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. Israeli forces have conducted bombings across the country since that time and have deployed troops on the ground in Syria’s southwest to secure Syrian military bases near the border so that they cannot be seized by hostile forces.
Syria’s new government was formed by members of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, a Sunni Islamist terrorist group.
Since taking over, the new regime has struggled to project an image of moderate inclusivity to the nation’s ethnic and religious minority groups while also seeking to centralize control over those minorities’ territories.
The Druze are one such group. They practice a minority religion that originated as an offshoot of Islam but whose adherents do not identify as Muslim.
The Syrian government has sought to bring Druze security forces under its direct authority and to establish a non-Druze governor and police chief for the Druze territory south of Damascus.
However, videos emerged in April that purported to show Syrian security forces attacking members of the Alawites, an ethno-religious group that former ruler Assad belonged to and with whom the Druze were loosely aligned.
Hundreds of Alawites and Druze have since died in several incidents of sectarian violence, events that have deepened fears that the dominant Islamist powers may now seek to crush the nation’s minority groups.
Those fears began coming to a head on May 1, when dozens of people were killed in sectarian clashes in the province of Sweida, which is predominantly Druze.
Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a joint statement shortly after the May 2 strikes, saying that the action would send “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.”
Yair Lapid, Israeli opposition leader, said on social media platform X: “Israel cannot abandon the Druze in Syria to their fate. The Syrian regime must know they are our allies and we will not stand by while they are attacked.”
Likewise, some Druze in Israel who serve in the military there have written to Netanyahu requesting assistance for their fellows in Syria, suggesting that hundreds of Druze in Israel’s military are ready to volunteer for a protective mission.
However, inside Syria, the question of Israeli protection is politically sensitive.
“Syria is our mother nation, we do not have an alternative country,” Druze leader Laith al-Balous said in an interview on Syrian television when asked whether Israel’s strikes on Syria were meant to protect the Druze. “We don’t need anyone’s protection.”
