IDF, Border Police disperse Israeli-Druze crowds along Syrian border, returns them to Israel
The IDF and Border Police dispersed violent gatherings consisting of dozens of Israeli Druze civilians across the border with Syria, the military said on Saturday.
After the gathering, the civilians crossed the border fence into Syrian territory in the Majdal Shams area, where they acted violently towards security forces, the IDF noted.
Israeli media earlier reported that a group of Israeli-Druze civilians had crossed the border from Israel into Syria between Friday night and Saturday morning.
IDF soldiers were deployed on the border together with the Border Police in order to prevent and suppress the violent gathering. Many of the Israeli Druze civilians who arrived at the border were drunk, according to Walla, and a few dozen managed to cross the forces into Syrian territory while using violence and pushing IDF soldiers.
All those who crossed the border were returned to Israeli territory by the IDF, according to Walla, citing military sources.
The illegal crossings came around the announcement by US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack that Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan, and regional partners.
Earlier clashes and humanitarian aid transfers
Before Barrack's announcement, it was reported that clashes in Syria between Bedouins and Druze resumed on Friday evening, when about 200 Bedouins entered the city of Sweida with rockets and machine guns and continued the fighting.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar ordered the urgent transfer of aid to Sweida's Druze population as the country's security forces prepare to redeploy to the Druze-majority Sweida city to quell fighting by the Druze and Bedouin tribes.
Additionally, a source told The Jerusalem Post that afternoon that "Israel has agreed to allow a limited entry of internal security forces into Sweida for the next 48 hours."
The day before, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that a ceasefire in Syria was achieved through 'forceful actions.
'We have established a clear policy: the demilitarization of the area south of Damascus and the protection of our brothers, the Druze,' he added.
Amir Bohbot, Maariv Online, and Reuters contributed to this report.
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Trump tells Israel to ‘finish the job' against Hamas weeks after suggesting ceasefire deal in sight
Donald Trump The Middle East Israel-Hamas warFacebookTweetLink Follow Only a few weeks ago, President Donald Trump seemed confident a deal was days away that would end the fighting in Gaza, secure the release of hostages and allow aid to flow into an enclave where people are starving to death. Now, Trump's optimism seems to have vanished. The president pulled back his negotiators from ceasefire talks this week after the US deemed Hamas neither 'coordinated' nor 'acting in good faith.' Steve Witkoff, Trump's Middle East envoy, said he was looking into 'alternative options' for getting the hostages out. And Trump, rather than urging an immediate return to the negotiating table, signaled Friday it was time for Israel to escalate its military campaign, even as images of starving children in Gaza lead to mounting global outrage. 'I think they want to die, and it's very, very bad,' Trump said of Hamas before leaving for a weekend trip to Scotland. 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It was a stark acknowledgement from the president that his attempts to broker a new ceasefire — which seemed earlier this month in its final stages — had fallen off course. A failure to end the Gaza conflict, along with his parallel struggles to end Russia's war in Ukraine, have proven frustrating for Trump as he jockeys for a Nobel Peace Prize. His pessimism did not entirely match other signals emerging from the region. Egypt and Qatar said they would move forward in mediating for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, calling the latest suspension in talks 'normal in the context of these complex negotiations,' according to a joint statement posted by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A senior Israeli official told CNN that the talks have 'not at all' collapsed, and said there is still an opportunity for the negotiations to resume. 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During a meeting in Tunis on Friday, Tunisian President Kais Saied presented Trump's senior Africa adviser Massad Boulos — who is also the father-in-law of Trump's daughter Tiffany — with photos of malnourished children, desperate for food and eating sand. 'It is absolutely unacceptable,' Saied could be heard saying, according to AFP. 'It is a crime against all of humanity.' At the White House, Trump said it was Hamas that was preventing aid from being distributed. And he said the US hadn't received enough credit for the help it had already provided. 'People don't know this, and we didn't certainly get any acknowledgement or thank you, but we contributed $60 million to food and supplies and everything else,' he said. 'We hope the money gets there, because you know, that money gets taken. The food gets taken. We're going to do more, but we gave a lot of money.' An internal US government review found no evidence of widespread theft by Hamas of US-funded humanitarian aid in Gaza. Meanwhile, top US allies have adopted a tougher stance on Israel's military campaign. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whom Trump will meet in Scotland this weekend, on Friday said 'Israel's disproportionate military escalation in Gaza' was 'indefensible.' And French President Emmanuel Macron, in a surprise late night social media post, said France would move to recognize a Palestinian state at September's United Nations General Assembly, a step that angered Israel and that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called 'a slap in the face to the victims of October 7th.' Trump sounded less troubled by the move, which he instead dismissed as pointless. 'The statement doesn't carry any weight,' he said. 'He's a very good guy. I like him. But that statement doesn't carry weight.' CNN's Jeremy Diamond and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this story.
