The Israeli military has carried out an airstrike on the outskirts of Sweida city as clashes between Bedouin tribes and Druze fighters intensified on Thursday night.
The clashes started a wave of tit-for-tat retaliatory violence earlier on in the day after Syrian government forces withdrew from Sweida.
The violence began after Syrian government forces started to withdraw from the Druze-majority province of Sweida, ending four days of conflict between the army and local Druze fighters.
In a speech on Thursday, the Syrian president said Druze groups would be left to govern security affairs in the southern province, in what he described as a choice to avoid war.
Ahmed al-Sharaa said: “We sought to avoid dragging the country into a new, broader war that could derail it from its path to recovery from the devastating war … We chose the interests of Syrians over chaos and destruction.”
Clashes resumed on Thursday afternoon in Sweida as Syrian state media reported that Druze groups launched revenge attacks on Bedouin villages, killing many civilians and prompting a wave of displacement, after Bedouin tribes had fought alongside government forces against Druze fighters earlier in the week.
The Syrian media outlet Enab Baladi quoted Bedouin residents as saying “armed groups of Druze” stormed their villages, burning houses as they came. One of the three spiritual leaders of the Syrian Druze, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, put out a statement vowing to “respect the peaceful Bedouin clans”.
Calls for revenge had begun to circle on social media on Thursday.
Syrian security forces initially intervened in Sweida on Monday after a local dispute between Arab Bedouin tribes and Druze fighters escalated into fighting. Druze militias tried to prevent the entry of the Syrian army and attacked them, which led to days of clashes with government forces.
The Israeli military also intervened, striking the Syrian defence ministry headquarters in Damascus and dozens of Syrian military targets in the south. An Israeli military spokesperson said the strikes were a message to Syria’s president regarding the events in Sweida.
At least 516 civilians and fighters were killed in the clashes, according to the UK-based monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The monitor said at least 86 civilians were killed by government forces and their allies, and that three Bedouin civilians were killed by Druze fighters on Thursday.
Sharaa condemned Israel for “wide-scale targeting of civilian and government facilities”. He said the strikes were pushing “matters to a large-scale escalation, except for the effective intervention of American, Arab and Turkish mediation, which saved the region from an unknown fate”.
The clashes were the most serious challenge to Damascus’s rule since a series of massacres in the coastal north-west in March, in which 1,500 mostly Alawite civilians were killed after a foiled attack by remnants of the ousted Assad regime on security forces.
The Druze, a religious minority in Syria and the wider Middle East, make up the majority of the population of Sweida province. They have been negotiating with the Islamist-led authorities in Damascus since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in an attempt to achieve autonomy but have yet to reach an agreement that defines their relationship with the new Syrian state.
Some Druze said they felt further estranged from the new authority after the clashes. “I would rather die than be ruled by them. At least I would die with dignity,” said a 25-year-old civil engineer in Sweida, whose two cousins were killed on Tuesday.
Other Druze dignitaries, particularly Youssef Jarboua, another of Syria’s three Druze spiritual leaders, have advocated for a more conciliatory approach with Damascus.
Sharaa acknowledged abuses against civilians had occurred and said “lawless groups” had committed crimes against them.
“We are determined to hold accountable anyone who wronged or harmed our Druze brethren. They are under the protection and responsibility of the state and the law and justice guarantee the rights of all without exception,” he added.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, welcomed the initial ceasefire. He said on X that an agreement had been reached to restore calm in the area, urging “all parties to deliver on the commitments they have made”, without elaborating on the nature of the agreement.
The US had been mediating in an attempt to stop Israeli strikes on Syria, which came as a surprise as Israeli-Syria ties had been warming since May.
Rubio blamed “historic longtime rivalries” for the clashes in Sweida. “It led to an unfortunate situation and a misunderstanding, it looks like, between the Israeli side and the Syrian side,” Rubio told reporters in the White House.
Diplomats said the UN security council would meet on Thursday to address the Syrian conflict.
It was unclear how the autonomy of Sweida would be affected by the days of clashes. Though Sharaa’s speech said the military would be withdrawing, it made no mention of members of general security, Syria’s equivalent to gendarmes.
For months, Sweida has been negotiating its place within the new Syrian state, as the minority Druze have deep misgivings about the new authorities. The clashes exposed rifts between the Druze leadership, with Hijri rejecting any forms of cooperation with Damascus.
The clashes also threatened to upset months of diplomatic progress between Israel and Syria after Israel struck for the first time in months.
Syrian and Israeli officials had recently met in Baku, Azerbaijan, for security coordination discussions, and Syria’s leadership said it could eventually be open for normalisation with its southern neighbour.
The clashes provoked anger among the Druze population in Israel. Dozens of Israeli Druze broke through the border fence on Wednesday.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the Israeli military was working to help the Druze and urged Israeli Druze citizens not to cross the border.
The Israeli military said it was working to safely return civilians who had crossed.
