Tuesday’s ceasefire announcement in the southern Syria Suwayda Governorate went pretty poorly. There was fighting before and after, and it fell apart more or less immediately. Wednesday, they’re trying again, announcing a new ceasefire.
Tuesday’s ceasefire came from Defense Ministry officials, while Wednesday’s was announced by the Interior Ministry. Both came with an endorsement from some Druze officials, though once again Wednesday’s agreement has already been disavowed by one prominent local Druze figure, Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hijri.
Adding to the hopes though, Syria has begun to withdraw troops from the Suwayda area. This reportedly came after the US asked them to do so, with an eye toward pushing the Druze to voluntarily integrate into the Islamist-dominated central government.
The fighting in Suwayda first erupted Sunday in the Bedouin neighborhood of Maqus, in the city’s east. Fighting escalated, Druze came in from the surrounding areas, and the local Bedouins called tribal allies from nearby as well. When the Syrian military arrived they reportedly took the Bedouins’ side, killing a number of Druze civilians on top of what was already going on.
At this point in excess of 300 people have been killed in Suwayda and the surrounding area. A large number of Israeli Druze crossed into Syria, apparently with designs on participating in the fight. Members of the Israeli Knesset also entered Syria, claiming they were trying to convince the Israeli Druze to return home. The MKs only got as far as the village of Hader, far from the fighting, and it’s not clear if the other Druze that crossed the border went any farther than that.
Israel has forbidden the Syrian military from having any assets south of Damascus, which includes the entire Suwayda Governorate. As a result Israel has attacked Syrian military forces in Suwayda since Monday, and on Wednesday they escalated matters by attacking the Syrian Defense Ministry building in Damascus itself.
Though Israeli officials only sometimes present this as having anything specifically to do with the Druze, at times they present the military operations as being done to protect the Druze from the Islamist government. In practice, Israel invaded Syria in December, more or less immediately after the regime change, and these attacks are in some ways just a continuation of that.
