Rojava Kurdish communalist utopia - a radical social feminist experiment is taking place at the heart of the boiling Middle East with 4 million people partaking. Hardly anybody has heard of it. Why?
Druze Crisis in Syria – Horrors, Analysis, and What Next?
July 13th is the Druze equivalent of Israel's October 7th
JULY 13TH IS THE DRUZE OCTOBER 7TH
Prologue -the children only wanted to play football; Druze survival – we either live honorably or die honorably; A scene from hell in Syria; Itai Anghel’s take on events; A-Sharaa – angel or devil? Updates;
At the bottom of this page there are links to all my posts on the Druze
Israel has many allies, but few as devoted, brave, and steadfast as the Druze. We must honor that loyalty—not just in words, but in deeds.
Prologue - The Children Only Wanted to Play Football
Direct hit in a football field
On July 27th, 2024, at 6:18 , a siren was sounded in Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Israeli Golan Heights. A Faraq-1 Iranian-made missile, launched from Lebanon, killed 12 children ages 10-16, who were playing on a football field, and wounded 42 kids and adults. Their bodies were strewn on the grass. According to residents, although the warning siren was activated, it was only a few seconds before the rocket hit the field leaving no time to reach the adjacent shelter.
The distance between Majdal Shams and the Lebanese-Israeli border is less than a kilometer, and only a few hundred meters separate it from the Syrian-Israeli border. There really is no time to run, even for athletic kids.
Druze and Israeli citizens and IDF soldiers visit Majdal Shams to comfort the mourning families on the last day of the 3 mourning days, who lost their child in the last missile attack Majdal Shams, July 31, 2024.
Source : Jerusalem Post. (photo credit: MICHAEL GILADI/FLASH90)
Beyond Hezbollah’s lies
Typically, Hezbollah shifted blame and claimed that the kids died from interceptor fragments of the Israeli Iron Dome defense system. Western sources demonstrated beyond shadow of doubt, though, that the missile came directly from Lebanon, so Hezbollah shifted their story again and claimed they were aiming at a military base 3 km away from Majdal. Lies are habitual in the Middle East, legitimized by Islam, and naïve Westerners believe them all, even from the worst and most murderous terrorist organizations, typically as long as Israel can be put in a bad light.
According to US intelligence, there were no doubts that Hezbollah was responsible, but it was not certain if Hezbollah intentionally targeted the site or misfired. The Associated Press reported that the explosion left a crater 2 meters wide, and that irregularly-shaped shrapnels recovered from children’s bodies indicated that the strike was not caused by a malfunctioning air defense missile.
I personally suspect that in light of the current atrocities perpetrated against Druze citizens in Syria, the attack might have been intentional after all. Both Islamic branches – the Shi’a based in Iran, and the Sunna based in Saudi and Turkey, hate the Druze, whom they consider heathen. This hatred even surpasses their hatred of us, Jews, and of Christians. (Check the section onTaqiyya in my post “Druze – Israel’s Mountain Allies and Tactics of Survival”).
Aftermath
The world in general, and Jews and Israelis in particular, sent a lot of sympathy and a lot of money to the victims’ families. Notably, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Jewish Federations of North America, and Keren Hayesod donated 600,000 NIS to Majdal Shams, stating, “We see the Druze community as family.”
Some Druze demanded revenge; others said that no further bloodshed can compensate for the deaths of their children. Nonetheless, revenge came soon enough, and Israel targeted some of the main culprits and a high-ranking Hezbollah commander as well, but the pain and the hurt went deep…(See my post on the complexities of Druze identity and loyalty. )
Complicated allegiance
It should be mentioned again in this context that the position of the Golan Druze is complicated. None of these children had Israeli citizenship. Their parents might still, in principle at least, be loyal to Syria, yet people asked Israel for revenge and complained about inadequate protections. They also refused to have politicians at the funeral.
Seventy percent of Golan Druze carry Syrian citizenship and do not count as proper Israelis. Nonetheless, Israeli authorities have characterized the attack as the deadliest attack on its civilians since October7th .
The Hezbollah-Israel War followed in the wake of the October 7th pogrom on Israeli citizens in their homes and while celebrating a party. The Gaza War followed, and then it was Hezbollah’s turn to join in.
Druze reactions
The attack provoked outrage among Druze in Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Muwaffaq Tarif, spiritual leader of Israel’s Druze stated:
“The sight of the children’s hattered bodies strewn across the grass is indescribable”
He added that a civilized country cannot allow this kind of disaster to its citizens and residents to continue. As emphasized above, most Druze in the Golan still have only a resident status, refusing to accept Israeli citizenship. Many have families in Syria.
All this was just the promo to the horrific attack on July 13th by the other hostile branch of Islam – the Sunnis, now in government in Syria.
Listen, motherland. May God bless our people in the occupied Golan. We can afford to be silent when children sleep quietly, but when they die in a treacherous bombing delivered by the party of the devil, we must raise our voices against the gang that rules here
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Druze Survival - We Either Live Honorably, or Die Honorably
Israeli Druze en route to help their brethren in Syria
Source Ynet. Credit: Efi Sharir.
I listen regularly to a podcast by Israel’s TV12 called “A Story a Day“. The podcast is meant to enrich the listener with news behind the news, background stories and general knowledge pertaining to the ever-blasting and often superficial newsreel. The interviewer, award-winning journalist Elad Simhayoff, is gentle and objective in his approach, non-intrusive, intelligent, and professional at his craft.
This news-loaded week he interviewed two people regarding the Druze crisis: Fares Lalawi, a resident of the predominantly Druze village of Isfiye in the Carmel region, currently serving as deputy head of his local council, and Itai Anghel, a multiple awards-winner Jewish Israeli journalist, specializing in conflict zones, with a record of entering enemy countries, including Syria.
From Isfiya, Israel,to Hader, Syria – Fares Lalawi
Fares Lalawi could not stay at home when the news reached him that his brethren in Syria were being slaughtered, raped, tortured, humiliated publicly, and sadistically treated by Bedouin and then also by regime “soldiers”, ostensibly sent to “maintain order”. Harassment and attacks were already ongoing for the past several months, and Fares was sending money and medicines, but these last several days the situation got out of hand.
At a certain point, Lalawi crossed the border fence, together with hundreds of Israeli Druze (see pictures), walked on foot to a meeting point, where Syrian Druze hoisted them on to pickup trucks and drove them to Hader, the border village on the Syrian side. There, they were received as heroes and saviors. Israeli soldiers watched from the side, and refrained from intervening.
One of the Druze religion’s “commandments” is to live honorably or, if not possible, to die honorably. Mr. Lalawi said that for him, seeing his brothers and sisters being slaughtered, raped, humiliated, while he stayed at home, rendered his honor worthless, meaningless. He had no choice but to cross the border:”We are good people, all in all, but don’t test us, play with us, and don’t threaten us existentially. A 100 years ago the French in Syria received their due from us. We hope Jolani will get his soon.”
To the Israeli government he sends a reminder: You promised to stand by our Druze brothers and sisters. Keep your word.
Simhayoff on Lalawi:
Fares Lalawi is a rational person. He is in Syria to save his people from extermination. In his job, he subs for the head of the council at Isfiya, a large and respected Druze-majority village in the Carmel region. He has a Masters degree and is well educated. People like him did not cross the border on impulse. You cannot make peace as Trump, a -Sharaa and Israel are attempting, while heads are being severed from bodies.
Israeli Druze crossing the border to help their brethren in Syria.
Source: Ynet. Credit: Effi Sharir
Fighting for Survival in Syria -- What Actually Happened. A Scene from Hell
Fares Lalawi (and multiple other sources) talk about beheadings, including of children, bodies strewn on the streets, hospitals and morgues overwhelmed; rapes, including of girls. Forces in army uniforms humiliated Druze men – beating them on the street in front of everybody, forcing them to say things against their religion, shaving their mustaches and beards at gun point. An 80-year-old sheikh was force-shaved by soldiers as he tried to talk peace with them. Shortly after he was shot.
Shaving mustaches in middle street as an act to humiliate Druze. Sweida, Syria. Source ; Walla
On July 15th, a group of youth was executed in Tishrin Square. In a new video, armed men force hostages to jump to their deaths from their balcony as they shoot them.
The massacre at the national hospital in Sweida
White plastic sheets cover bodies in the carpark of a hospital in Suweida. There is debris of chairs and hospital beds scattered across the ground too. Source: BBC. July 22nd, 2025
On July 22nd, the BBC reported that a week before, soldiers entered the Sweida National Hospital and a bloodbath ensued. Reporters were told by the staff that patients were shot by the soldiers in their beds while asleep. A disabled 8-year-old was shot in the head. The number of dead in that incident alone was estimated at 300.
“It was a massacre,” said Dr Wissam Massoud, a neurosurgeon at the hospital.: “The soldiers came here saying they wanted to bring peace, but they killed scores of patients, from the very young to the very old.” Blame for this massacre lies straight on the shoulders of government agents sent to “restore order”.
Total estimates of Druze massacred keep rising and currently stands at about 2000.
Syrian forces accused of ‘executions’ in Druze area as Israel launches strikes – Source: Al Monitor
Al Monitor, an independent newspaper reporting on the Middle East and based in the US, reported, that “Armed groups affiliated with the government were also responsible for gunning down three siblings in front of their mother in Sweida province,”
Itai Anghel's take on the Events
Itai Anghel asks: How did we get from a vision of peace and eating hummus in Damascus to bombarding the Syrian presidential palace?
Itai is questioning Israeli hawks careless, unproven statements that a-Sharaa ordered the atrocities against the Druze. How did the current round of violence start?
Druze and Bedouins in Southern Syria have despised one another since forever. Notwithstanding, some Bedouins, as well as some Druze, served under Assad. In the current turmoil, once the Bedouins started attacking, as they have done several times in the past several months, a-Sharaa sent his forces, supposedly to enforce order, but a bloodbath ensued. Some say he himself planned and intended it. Itai does not believe this is the case.
If you don’t change, you are a mule
Itai believes Jolani-a-Sharaa meant what he said, and that he did change, but the change did not necessarily seep down to his men. They stayed Jihadis. You could see their joy in killing – running over the corpses over and over, celebrating the blood.
Itai has been following a-Sharaa since the days when he called himself Al-Jolani and ran Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian version/affiliate of Al-Kaida. He even entered Idlib province in 2012 and stayed with the rebels, but was careful not to enter the area where El-Jolani presided.
Anghel emphasizes that already in 2016, while Assad was still in power, El Jolani announced he was turning his back on the road of Jihad. He claimed that in his 20s he was thinking one way, in his 30s a bit differently, and in his 40s he sees the world in a different light. Later, he added that he thinks differently in time of war and in time of diplomatic negotiation. According to Itai, the change shows the development of a human being.
Formally, a-Sharaa condemned the deeds done to the Druze, promised to punish the perpetrators, and said that such actions are contrary to the principles on which he is trying to build the new Syria.
A Syrian Ben Gurion??
A-Sharaa, by his words, is trying to build Syria anew. For that he wants to dismantle all the armed militias in the territory and create a Syrian army, just like Ben Gurion did so successfully for Israel in 1949. In my post “Ben Gurion’s Genius – dismantling militias on both sides“. I elaborated about Ben Gurion’s genius in doing just that in Israel. Little did I know when I wrote this that 70 year later one Ben Gvir was going to turn the very Israeli police into his private militia to fulfil his personal political agenda .
The Kurdish case
Rojava
Kurdish women fighters in the war against ISIS. Source: The Regions
Kurds control 30% of the Syrian territory, an area three times the size of Israel in the northeastern part of the country bordering on Turkey. Kurds are all in against Jihad and Jihadists, have fought and won the war against ISIS. They have established a very special unique republic named Rojava, where women are totally equal and very powerful in all branches of government, and famously in the military as well. In June 2019, I wrote an article about them named, “Rojave – a Feminist Utopia at the Heart of the Middle East“. I highly recommend reading it to anybody who thinks the Middle East is a lost case. The Kurds are yet another persecuted group at the heart of Islam. Like the Druze, they are proud mountain people.
The Turkish bulldozer
Nothing in the Middle East is isolated. Twenty million Kurds live in Turkey, right next to Syria, and Erdogan refuses to give them a modicum of autonomy, forbids their language, and fights their freedom fighters, the PKK, tooth and nail. The Rojava success gives the Kurdish Turks hopes, and scares Erdogan. He prefers to show solidarity with Palestinians rather than with his citizen Kurds, also wishing for independence.
Erdogan supports a Syrian mercenary-dominated rebel group names SNA, the Syrian National Army, who was interested not only in toppling Assad, but in destroying the Kurds as well.
The Syrian Kurds feel they don’t have any good options. Had they kept their independence, the Turks and the SNA would invade Rojava and destroy it. With the typical forecast of slaughter and rape, they therefore agreed to collaborate with a-Sharaa, and demilitarize. For him, this is a great step towards uniting Syria, subduing minority resistance and enhancing the project of a national army.
Next on his list are the Druze.
Good will or interests?
Back to the Druze. Anghel admits that not only good will is at play when a-Sharaa disengages himself from the Jihadists, but also interests. Qatar, Saudi and America will help a-Sharaa financially if he “behaves himself”. He saw what happened to Jihadists who banged their heads against the wall – in Syria, Iraq and Libya, and he is trying something different – to create a stable state. Itai knows a-Sharaa is no Zionist, but that he finds it constructive to move towards Israel to gain Trump’s support. He understands the horror pictures from Sweida do not serve his international interests. However, Simhayoff claims that the people in the field do not necessarily comport themselves with his vision for a moderate Syria in mind, They are more likely to behave how they”feel like”, which is not what westerners or the Druze need and like to see.
Giving an ex-Jihadist a chance?
![Syria's interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa gives a speech in Ankara, on February 4, 2025 [OZAN KOSE/AFP via Getty Images]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/GettyImages-2197113296-1.jpg?fit=920%2C613&ssl=1 "A Sharaa")
Former Jihadi in suit and tie. A Sharaa. Did he really change?
Credit: Middle East Monitor
Anghel, on his side, maintains that, following 53 years of nightmarish dictatorship, a country cannot change in a day, and we need to give them a chance. Calls from the Israeli Far Right to target a-Sharaa are not smart and can backfire. He talks at length about Syrian history, emphasizes that Syria was a 1924 French invention, and has no coherent structure. The French pushed together a mosaic of people who do not like each other, and have little in common, to say the least. These groups include Allawites, Shiites, Druze, Kurds, Christians, Sunni Moslem, and myriad smaller groups.
On a hopeful note, Anghel states that we, Israelis, can bond with a-Sharaa against our common enemies – Iran and Hezbollah.
Reminder: Israel’s victory over Hezbollah is what prompted and enabled a-Sharaa and the rebels to march over Damascus.
As to the Druze, Itai reiterates that we owe the Druze to protect them, and must keep our word. If there are tanks in Sweida, we must take them down, as we did. We should bomb and target whoever and whatever deserve to be bombed and targeted, but that does not include a-Sharaa, He is entitled to have his chance under the sun. After all, Simhayoff agrees, there is nothing to lose at the moment, even if we only reach an agreement to a ceasefire and an end to hostilities, with no peace and no trips for hummus in Damascus in sight…
Importantly, Itai added another hopeful point: the Syrian people look at Israel and wish to see something new happen. They want us to view them in a different light as well, and vice versa. There is a new openness, and we should not drive it to waste.
So A-Sharaa or Al Jolani? - Peace Angel or Devil?
To make a long answer short – Only Time will tell.
I quoted Itai Anghel above, who thinks we should believe the man. I tend to be an optimist, so I will go with this vision for a new, reformed Middle East, or at least, for Syria. At bottom, I believe in the human spirit, and also because I know from our own history and from general history, that intense suffering begets change. And the Syrians under the Assad family suffered horribly. The Middle East on the whole, though, is hard to reform, partially because it is so bound and stuck with intolerant fossilized backwards religions.
Updates that Become Obsolete the Minute I Write Them, but What Can I do?
As of July 25th, 2025 more than 1300 people have already been slaughtered in a-Sweida. (Now I read the number rose to ~2000, but I cannot keep track as I write these posts).
An agreement has been reached between Israel and Syria under American umbrella:
All forces – Bedouin as well as regime, must retreat out of the Druze area.
Druze squads will patrol the villages. Any violations would be reported to the Americans. Border towns would be demilitarized. No organizations affiliated with the Syrian regime would be allowed into A-Sweida.
Sounds too good to be true?
Some are certainly skeptical.
Lior Ben Ari from Ynet (Yediot Aharonot) is concenred that the violence might re-erupt. He quotes Prof. Eyal Ziser, an expert on the modern history of Lebanon and Syria. Ziser maintains that historically the tensions between Druze and Bedouin are rooted in the location of Jabal Druze (Druze Mountain) on the road to the Haj in Mecca. To fulfil the Haj, you had to go through Druze territory, and better be in good relations with them,. Naturally, that irritated the Muslims. Druze don’t do the Hajj. Things are erupting now since the new regime, unlike Assad’s, is not secular, but overtly Sunni Muslim. When A-Sharaa commanded Jabhat a-Nusra, the Syrian branch of Al Kaida, they fought the Druze on Jabal al-Druze. Jabhat is a Jihadi organization, that does not see the Druze as Muslim, but as a sort of heathens.
Druze affiliations and loyalties complexities
The Druze do not have national ambitions. They Syrian Druze are pro Syria, (see my post about Druze loyalties). In Israel they are pro-Israel and in Lebanon they are pro Lebanon. Some served in the Syrian army and were loyal to Assad at the time. Even during the current crisis and even as many Druze call on Israel to annex them, no Syrian Druze leader called officially on Israel to intervene on their behalf. Most still see themselves as Syrians, and not just the leadership.
Dr. Anand Wahabi from Haifa University claims that the Druze had a pivotal central role in the establishment of the Syrian state – in 1925 they led the big rebellion against the French., and 3000 of them were killed. The Druze never got the credit or the recognition for their contribution, due to their religious difference. For a short while there was a Druze autonomy under the French rule, as well as an Alawaite autonomy. These are the areas where the Sunnis are busy slaughtering and raping today.
Druze national guard?
On August 26th, Amir Hasisi, posted the following on Facebook (my translation):
The Druze ethnic group in Syria stands tall, resolute and fearless, and is, for the first time in its history, establishing a Druze national guard. This is an independent fighting force, trained and equipped, which was born out of the pain, the fury and the horrors inflicted upon us by the Jihadist Bedouine tribes, under the leadership of ISIS and backed by the crazy regime in Damascus.
Sweida will never surrender.
The Druze National Guard will protect every house, every street and every family.
The Druze people are now all united.
Our land will not be deserted, our honor defiled and our enemies will not win!
I wish all the best for them, but only time will tell what’s in store for the Druze, for Syria, for Israel and for the world at large.
One last word about the Turkish wild card
If all that was not complicated enough, here come the Turks. According to Dr. Wahabi, there is a plot to punish religious minorities. This is Islamist thinking, financed by Turkey and Qatar. The idea is of an Islamist empire, and a-Sweida is an obstacle on the path, a thorn in their eyes. Iran is now outside the main game (thanks to Israel), and they, in their view, are inside. According to Dr. Wahabi, “Turkish officers sat in a hotel in Damascus and planned the murders and horrors in the coastal area against the Alawites, and the attacks against the Druze in the provincial areas of Damascus, and now in a-Sweida. They hate the other, and want to continue into Israel.”
Turkish influence starts with a-Sharaa’s dependence on Turkish support for his country. In the days of Hayat Tahrir a-Sham, a-Sharaa fought the SDF Kurds, an organization Turkey sees as a terror organization due to its connections with the Kurdish underground in Turkey. According to a signed agreement between Syria and the SDF, the organization is expected to integrate into the Syrian army.
In a scary scenario, paradoxically, by defeating Hezbollah and thus indirectly enabling a-Sharaa’s win over Syria and the marginalization of Iran in the region, we now get the replacement of one harsh enemy, Iran, with another, Ardogan’s Turkey, giving Syria to him on a silver platter..
Let’s hope that despite all this, some stability will be established, and the Druze in Syria and elsewhere will be allowed to live peacefully and independently, as well as us, Israelis in our homeland.
Druze, Israel’s Quiet Allies – History, Current Events, Women, Religion and More
In this post series I attempt to cover several topics pertaining to this fascinating and little-known religious group and ethnic minority in Israel, now on the top of world’s news. Here you can scroll through the topics according to your interest:
Under the Oak Tree in Yanuh-Jat – Intro the the Druze; Israel’s Mountain Allies and Tactics of Survival; Druze Crisis in Syria – Horrors, Analysis and What Next; Druze Secret Religion – for the Chosen Few; Druze Cemeteries – State, Religion and the Soul; Yarka and Julis – Two Quaint Galilean Druze Villages; Druze Women Juggling Tradition and Moderna.
If you like what you see and you want more,
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