Amid reports of an Israeli military operation in Syria, including a wave of strikes near Damascus, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the northern Israeli Druze town of Julis on Thursday to meet Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, the community’s spiritual leader.
“We are focused right now on defending the Druze in Sweida, but not only there,” Netanyahu said. He recounted a recent phone call with Sheikh Tarif, who urged Israel to act. “He said to me, ‘The Jews cried out for help in the Holocaust, and no one came. Israel must come.’ That pierced my heart like an arrow. It is true not only factually, but morally and humanly. This is especially true due to the deep, genuine bond between us. We are brothers. When I understood the magnitude of the disaster, we acted immediately.”
Netanyahu stressed that Israel would not remain passive. “I am not naïve. I understand who we are dealing with and what we are dealing with. That is why we used force. I told President Trump: we both believe in the same idea — it’s called peace through strength. Strength comes first, then peace. That is how it works, certainly in our region, but not only here. But first and foremost, in our area.”
Sheikh Tarif said the Druze community in Syria is enduring a grave crisis. “We meet today at a decisive moment for the Druze in Syria and across the Middle East. Sweida province has been under heavy siege for 45 days, and the Druze are suffering a brutal massacre — an attempt at ethnic cleansing driven by religious motives, just as happened to our Jewish brothers on October 7,” he said.
He described the atrocities facing the community. “Day after day, horrifying scenes emerge: doctors and families murdered, children and the elderly killed, rapes, hundreds kidnapped, and dozens of villages destroyed. These are crimes against humanity, posing an existential threat to the Druze and destabilising the entire region.”
Tarif urged immediate action from Israel: “We demand that Israel act now — to open a humanitarian corridor, deliver aid by air, rescue the kidnapped Druze and return the displaced to their homes, ensure a genuine cease-fire, and remove terrorist forces from Sweida. The fate of our Druze brothers depends on actions taken now.”
Meanwhile, a senior Israeli official told a Saudi channel that Israeli forces had dismantled Turkish surveillance devices planted in Syria. Israeli sources denied the claim.