Israel strikes Damascus hard in support of the Druze
Israel said the strikes were meant to protect the Druze, a Syrian Arab minority, and to force President Ahmad Sharaa to withdraw his forces from the southern city of Sweida, where clashes involving Druze armed groups, Bedouin gunmen and government forces have been raging for days.
Israeli Air Force jets, which first fired four warning missiles, bombed the headquarters of the Syrian Defense Ministry and General Staff in the Umayyad Square in Damascus, scoring direct hits and sending thick plumes of black smoke into the sky.
The targeted building was badly damaged, while police forces blocked the roads leading to the square.
The Syrian Health Ministry confirmed the death and injuries.
Another Israeli strike targeted the surroundings of the Presidential People's Palace, Sharaa's official residence in Damascus.
The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights said 248 people were killed since Sunday when the clashes broke out in Sweida. The U.K.-based organization said "massacres and executions" committed by the regime's security forces were documented.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Wednesday that his country would escalate its level of attacks on the Syrian regime if they do not soon withdraw from the Druze-dominant region.
"The painful blows have begun," Katz said in a post on X after the strike on the General Staff building in Damascus.
Israeli media also quoted him as saying that Israel will not abandon the Druze and will not allow the Syrian regime to " harm and massacre them."
The Sweida clashes, which started between the Druze and Bedouin Sunni tribes, prompted the regime to send forces to restore order and impose its control on the region.
The Jerusalem Post website quoted Israeli Army sources as saying that "the military was ready for a multi-day campaign to convince" the Syrian regime to pull out its forces from the area and "leave the Syrian-Druze their autonomy."
It said that while the army will continue to bomb Syrian regime forces "to show them the cost of their military actions," it made it clear that it will not send troops there.
The army also deployed additional forces along the Syrian border and used tear gas and fired into the air to prevent Israeli Druze protesters from crossing the border.
Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, the spiritual leader of Israel's Druze community, denounced the "brutal massacre" of innocent civilians by Sharaa's forces, criticized Israel's response as "insufficient despite promises of protection" and called for immediate and decisive military action.
"This is not a clash between Druze and Bedouins, it's between the Druze and ISIS," he said in an interview.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was "very concerned" about Wednesday's Israeli strikes in Syria and was in contact with all relevant parties to end the conflict.
"We want the fighting to stop because we had a cease-fire overnight. It broke down again," Rubio said after a meeting with Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani in Washington. "So we're talking to both sides, all the relevant sides, on this, and hopefully can bring it to a conclusion."
Shortly after the Israeli strikes, the Syrian Interior Ministry announced that a cease-fire agreement has been reached, including "the deployment of security checkpoints inside Sweida and the full reintegration of the province into the Syrian state."
The official Syrian news agency, SANA, said the accord included an immediate cessation of all military operations, the formation of a monitoring committee to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire and the deployment of internal security and police checkpoints.
It also called for the immediate release of detainees, an agreement on a mechanism to regulate heavy weapons, the full reintegration of Sweida into the Syrian state and the formation of a joint fact-finding committee to investigate crimes, violations and abuses that occurred during the clashes.
According to the accord, those who will manage security control in the area will be the Druze residents of the province.
The Interior Ministry said the agreement was an important step toward rebuilding trust between the people of Sweida and the Syrian state.
"Our goal is for Syria to remain united, strong and safe for all its citizens, including our people in Sweida, who will always remain an essential part of this beloved homeland," the ministry said.
The cease-fire agreement, which was also announced by a Druze religious leader in a video message, was the second in two days.
The first truce accord was rejected by Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajiri, another Druze religious leader, who called for continuing fighting the government forces.
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