Syria’s Druze community, centered around the southern Suwayda Governorate, is undergoing substantial unrest lately, with Sheikh al-Aql Hikmat al-Hijri, one of the religious minority’s top three spiritual leaders, declaring the Druze community to be an “integral part of the State of Israel.”
Israel has its own relatively small Druze minority, chiefly in the occupied Golan Heights, and at times Israel uses the notion of supporting Syrian Druze as a pretext for military intervention against Syria, though it is just one of several justifications to attack Syria at any given time.
Al-Hijiri has long been keen for Suwayda to have a “special status” within Syria as the Druze homeland, and has suggested it being placed under international conservatorship or be allowed to transfer to another state other than Syria. Israel, however, does not border with the Suwayda Governorate.
Syrian Druze leader Hikmat al-Hijri | Image from X
In summer of 2025, violence erupted in Suwayda, leading to substantial massacres of Druze and Bedouin, and led to intermittent violence since that has left the government in de facto control of only part of Suwayda, and Druze factions operating elsewhere.
The lack of full government control over Suwayda has caused problems for Druze students trying to sit for exams, as the exams are being held in government-controlled areas, and factions have been preventing some of the students from leaving militia-controlled areas to participate.
Two Druze militia leaders were reported wounded in clashes over the weekend, and two civilians were reported killed in a shelling on the outskirts of Suwayda City, which locals claimed was fired from the government-controlled area in the city, but additional details are uncertain.
