Israel’s demand for a demilitarized zone in southern Syria and its promise to protect the Druze minority are putting it in deepening conflict with the new regime in Damascus.

While the Syrian Druze community might not stand with Israel, experts say that Jerusalem has an obligation to protect them against malevolent forces from within President Ahmed Al-Sharaa's camp.

Members of Syria’s Druze community are searching for loved ones and counting their dead after days of clashes in a southern province that left bloodied bodies of civilians on the streets and homes loo

Israel hit Damascus with powerful airstrikes on Wednesday, ostensibly to “protect” Syria’s Druze minority which has borne the brunt of ongoing sectarian clashes in the country.

Israel has struck military tanks in southern Syria, where government forces and Bedouin tribes clash with Druze militias.

"Silence and standing idly by are no longer an option,” Druze leader Sheikh Mowafak Tarif wrote. Israel's Druze spiritual leadership called on its community to prepare to assist their Syrian counterparts “by all means necessary,

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the Damascus headquarters served as a command center for deploying regime forces to Suwayda, a southern Syrian region gripped by days of deadly clashes between government troops, Druze militias, and Bedouin groups.

(Reuters) -Clashes between Syrian government troops and local Druze fighters resumed in the southern Druze city of Sweida early on Wednesday, just hours after a ceasefire was announced. Local news outlet Sweida24 said the city and nearby villages were coming under heavy artillery and mortar fire early on Wednesday,