Israel says Syria's air strikes are "information" to protect Druze minorities | Syria

Israeli officials warned that the country would intervene to protect a minority of Druze sects in Syria, carrying out a series of air strikes in Damascus and throughout Syria, and Israeli fighter jets carried out a series of air strikes.

The air strikes targeted Syrian military sites in Harasta, a suburb of Damascus, and encountered unknown targets in the southern Syrian province of Deraa and Hama province in northwestern Syria. At least one civilian was killed and four injured, according to Syrian state media reports.

The latest round of strikes comes after Israel killed four civilians and attacked near the Syrian presidential palace earlier Friday in a bombing in southern Syria.

Syria's new rulers angrily condemned the Israeli Air Force's raid on an unknown target near the presidential palace earlier that day, warning of a "dangerous escalation."

The Syrian president called the strike “a dangerous escalation of state institutions and their sovereignty” and accused Israel of understatement of the country.

Israeli officials said the attacks were intended to convey a message to the Syrian government, and a few days later there was a bloody clash between the supportive militias and fighters of the Druze minority.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Katz said in a joint statement that the attacks earlier on Friday were the second second in Syria this week, aimed at blocking the country's new leadership to avoid any hostilities against Druze.

"This is a clear message to the Syrian regime. We will not allow the deployment of troops in southern Damascus or any threat to the Druze community," the statement said.

Israeli troops confirmed in a statement that the fighter jets attacked the fighter jets near the palace of President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, Damascus, but did not provide further details.

Israel said it would protect Syria’s religious minority in Druze, a declaration that most Druze leaders rejected.

The head of the UN Independent International Syrian Commission for Inquiry condemned Israel's strike in an interview with Al Jazeera on Friday.

"The Israeli attack on Syria is absolutely unacceptable. There is no preemptive bombing in international law," said the committee chairman Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro.

The Damascus government ousted Bashar al-Assad in December last year and was led by the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which originated from the al-Qaeda jihad network. Although Syria’s new rulers have promised to rule inclusively in a multi-ethnic multi-ethnic state, they face pressure from extremists in their posts.

The conflict occurred in the Druze-Great Welfare area outside Damascus after a man made a derogatory comment on Prophet Mohammed, making a voice clip on social media. The clip was wrongly attributed to the Druze clergy, angering many Sunni Muslims, but may have been fabricated.

On Thursday, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, one of the three Syrian Druz spiritual leaders, accused the Syrian government of “unreasonable genocide attacks” against ethnic minority communities.

Hijri issued a statement calling for international protection for Druze in southern Syria, requiring international forces to "immediate intervention". Two other religious leaders in Syria, Druz, chose to negotiate directly with Damascus and refused to call for international intervention in Syria.

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A UK-based monitoring team, Syrian Human Rights Observatory, said 56 people in the outskirts of Jaramana, Damascus in Sahnaya and Druze-Mai, were killed, including local armed fighters and security forces.

The Druze religious sect began with the branch of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam in the 10th century. More than half of the approximately one million druzes live in Syria, mainly in the southern Swedish province and some suburbs of Damascus.

Druze lived most of his life in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel occupied from Syria during the 1967 war and annexed in 1981.

The Syrian government denied that any of its security forces were involved in the conflict with Druze, after which security forces and allied forces killed more than 1,700 civilians, mainly from the Alavit community in Bashar al-Assad.

Since the fall of the Assad regime in December, Israel has launched repeated air strikes in Syria that have damaged military hardware and inventory, a defense of Druze. Israel also sent troops to a demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights, seizing the main strategic terrain that had deployed Syrian forces on the southwestern border between Syria and Israel.

Israeli analysts say the strategy is designed to undermine the new Syrian government while also protecting potential proxy allies in the country. However, the strategy is controversial, with some officials saying a stable Syria will better serve Israel's interests.

Syrian President Sharaa told a visiting U.S. Congressman last week that Damascus wanted to normalize ties with Israel.