As winter approaches, the conditions in the already deprived Druze villages of southern Syria are only expected to deteriorate further.
Efforts for Damascus and Jerusalem to reach a security pact are reported to depend on the Syrian Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham government’s willingness to allow a humanitarian corridor into the province of Sweida, where a crisis has unfolded after months of massacres, attacks, and blockades by HTS and state-backed Bedouin groups.
Members of the community told The Jerusalem Post that over 2,500 people were murdered in the violence, 291,000 people displaced, and more than 250 abducted, including women and children. Homes were destroyed, livestock stolen, and villages pillaged.
Those who survived the waves of attacks have been living on meager resources sporadically permitted by HTS, along with whatever their own agriculture could provide. But the situation is growing increasingly desperate, according to a Syrian Druze activist and an Israeli Druze woman with close relatives across the border.
A., a Syrian Druze activist residing in Europe, lost 14 loved ones to the recent violence. He asked not to be named, fearing retribution against his surviving relatives should authorities realize he spoke with Israeli media.
Life since the massacre
Explaining that 38 Druze villages remain under the control of Bedouin tribes and government forces, A. painted a difficult reality of life in southern Syria for the proud ethnic minority sect. The true number of casualties remains unknown, he said, as bodies lay in the streets two months after the attacks began.
The sadism demonstrated in the attacks was something shocking to A., as “even in horror movies” he couldn’t imagine the scenes that unfolded. When messages first came in about the attacks, A. said he thought it was just the media playing up the violence for clicks and traffic, but then videos from his relatives came, and he saw the carnage for himself.
He described how three-month-old babies were murdered and their bodies left in boxes “like a gift,” and detailed how elderly and disabled people were burned alive in their wheelchairs and children raped.
A. said he is still haunted by a video filmed by the attackers: a young boy shot multiple times as his wounded father crawled toward him, bleeding heavily from his legs. “They let him crawl for just a meter or two, only to kiss his dead son. And then he died,” A. recounted, visibly emotional. “He died while hugging him.... And I still ask myself why we had to go through this.”
Syria’s Druze have been no strangers to state violence. Under former president Bashar Assad, members of the community would go missing, and their deaths would go unknown for 14-15 years, he said. Still, the community managed to avoid ruffling the regime’s feathers by “minding their own business” and never saw the kind of suffering inflicted only months after HTS took control.
“We never attacked anyone. We never expected this to happen to us,” A. mourned. “Yes, people talked about it... but you know, we used to laugh when people mentioned it, like, ‘Oh, no way. This is not going to happen in Sweida. Come on. We [are] all Syrian.’”
The shock of having Syria turn against A. was only slightly less surprising than the response of the Arab world. Speaking on a viral video of young kidnapped women being driven off, A. claimed the driver was a known Saudi national, and that individuals from across the region had traveled to the country to join the attack. A. claimed some of the remaining Druze hostages were now being held in Iraq, and officials had released videos taunting the people and intimidating them into silence.
While the Post is unable to fully verify the contents, A. shared footage that circulated across social media showing what was said to be the governor of Sweida, Mustafa al-Bakour, visiting women and children hostages. A. claimed the video was part of a psychological tactic being used by HTS officials to intimidate them into silence on the genocide. The visit was Bakour’s way of “saying we are in control. They want to pass a message that Israel helped [the Druze], but we are still in control.”
A. said the community, still in survival mode, had yet to “wake up” fully to what happened. The waves of assaults left them on edge, fearing new rounds of brutality.
“People jumped to first aid. They were trying to find food for their kids. People who were displaced are looking to find places to stay,” he said. “I know people in some of the villages in Sweida. They had a little two-bedroom house or two-bedroom flat. But [after the displacements], they had over 25 people in them.”
When the Post spoke to A. last week, he stated that bakeries had been out of bread for three days and that some lifesaving medication had run out eight weeks prior. One young diabetic girl was said to have died after insulin supplies ran out, and now 1,500 cancer patients risk a similar fate if they cannot access Damascus for chemotherapy treatment. While the healthcare situation is unbearable, A. said the Druze found an ally in the Jewish state, which took in some Druze for emergency treatments and chemotherapy, though many more are in dire condition.
Maintaining the balance of suffering and continued life is a key tactic of the HTS regime, A. said. “They allow the humanitarian aid to go in for a couple of days, then they block the road or the route into Sweida for a few days. So it’s not random. What they’re doing is not random. They are just keeping people alive... they’re not giving people what they need,” he accused.
Despite living so far from his community, A. has continued to try to help those most in need, while advocating for his people to Western leaders and the media.
One elderly woman in her 60s was left with only the nightgown she was wearing the night the attacks started and her mobile phone for 45 days. With virtually nothing left, she told A. she would need to sell her phone to buy food, which would significantly diminish the odds of her reuniting with her family. Efforts were quickly made to secure for her food and clean clothes, though the reality of someone having built an entire life to then see themselves with nothing but the clothes on their back was a difficult juxtaposition.
After years of exposure to anti-Israel messaging, from Syrian state media SANA to Hezbollah and Lebanese Druze influence, the sight of Israel’s flag in southern Syria may seem out of place. Yet A. displayed countless photos of Druze security forces with Israeli flag patches stitched onto their uniforms, alongside videos showing the flag flying openly next to Druze banners. With the Magen David appearing alongside the Syrian Druze sense of security, regional whispers about possible Israeli border expansion, and the deep familial ties between Druze on both sides of the border, conversations about Druze aspirations became closely intertwined with those of Israel.
Stressed the few Druze speaking out against being part of Israel had fallen to Lebanese influence and “are part of the methodology and way of thinking of [Lebanese Druze politician] Walid Kamal Jumblatt.”
Jumblatt, who founded Lebanon’s Progressive Socialist Party and was a strong ally of the Palestinian Liberation Organization during his time leading the Lebanese National Resistance Front, accused Israel during an interview with AFP in March of “trying to destabilize Syria, through the Druze but also others” in a “dangerous game.”
While A. said many would be happy as citizens of Israel, he admitted that the Druze would be happy with an independent state if, “out of the blue, the world decided to act as humans for once.” Should such an aspiration be achieved now, though, A. said, “We won’t have the ability to protect ourselves” from the dangerous ideologies surrounding them.
“We will remain vulnerable to those ideologies. Because of this, the problem is not the number of people currently fighting the Druze; it’s the spread and the type of ideologies that is growing in the area.” He voiced fears that other Druze in the region would soon be victim to similar onslaughts.
“I think the goal now, the focus, is to get our independence, but the ultimate goal, the more secure goal, the more logical, the more practical goal, is to be part of Israel.
“I think the ultimate goal, the more dignified goal for us, because we are looking for dignity [and] we’re looking for safety, is if Israel will take us. I think this will be the most practical solution for us,” A. shared.
Regardless of the community’s desires, A. fears that it would be too tall an order for Israel to fill, as the international community wouldn’t lend backing to an Israeli expansion, even if it meant saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of Druze.
Lacking hope for a future in Israel, he continued by saying he hopes that Israel will continue to hold Druze as an important factor in discussions with Damascus and will push for a humanitarian corridor to be opened from the Karmiel. Equally as important, A. stressed, is the need for the hostages to be returned home – especially the women and children.
Across the border
Eman Safady is a former journalist and media adviser who now volunteers at the Druze situation room in northern Israel. She has helped oversee the transfer of food, medicine, and money to Syrian Druze and provided hospitality for those taken to Israel for treatment.
Much like the Jewish Diaspora, she said, the Druze all felt like “one family, and we feel that we have to help and support each other everywhere.”
Over the past few months, Safady has seen huge amounts of food packaged and delivered to southern Syria by the IDF by helicopter as a way to see emergency supplies reach their destination quickly.
Safady spoke about the necessity of building a humanitarian corridor from Israel, but noted that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is a devastating barrier to achieving this.
“He’s afraid because maybe the Druze community will be independent” and threaten his hopes for a united Syria, she theorized.
Mirroring what A. said, she said that there is a great love for Israel among Syrian Druze, and they are grateful and willing to continue receiving assistance from the Jewish state.
The placement of Israeli flags was a new development, she said, speaking about how the current situation had changed local perceptions.
“This is really, really impressive. You know, it wasn’t like that [before]. I think this situation in Sweida makes unification for the Druze [possible],” she said, adding that now the Jewish people and the Israeli people would be “welcomed” there.
While Israel’s Druze and general populace responded passionately to the crisis, the silence from the rest of the world was strongly noted and left both Syrian and Israeli Druze feeling “disappointed.”
“There is a lot of silence about the situation in Sweida around the world. I don’t know why, because we see the response for Gaza children, the response for what happened in Sudan.... The international side doesn’t say anything against Sharaa and the regime,” she shared. “For me, it’s very disappointing to see these things.”
While Jordan has been involved in Damascus-Jerusalem ceasefire talks with both the United States and Russia, Amman’s lack of meaningful action was a sore point mentioned by Safady.
She believes the Hashemite Kingdom has been reluctant to offer more material help to the Druze due to fear of the reaction of the country’s many Bedouin citizens. Currently, Jordan’s King Abdullah II enjoys popular support from the Bedouin, though she predicted he may fear that popularity would quickly fade if he took any actions seen to be against their Bedouin brethren behind the massacres.
Though those on the ground may have been from nearby tribes, Safady maintained that they were backed by HTS.
“It was fake. Everything was fake. It was like some exercise from the side of the regime to use the Bedouin,” she said. “The Bedouin and the Druze shared a lot of solidarity. They lived together all this time without any problem, without any attack.... It was all a tactic for Sharaa.”
Copying a terrorist’s playbook
Speaking on the Druze hostage crisis, Safady said Druze leaders had remained largely silent, fearing that negotiations for their return could be upended prematurely. Some of the kidnapped villagers have already returned, while others have been smuggled and hidden as far as Iraq, she said.
Both A. and Safady noted that the playbook of the massacre seemed eerily similar to the tactics employed by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023. Attacking civilian communities without warning, taking hostages, and burning people could suggest some inspiration was taken from the Gaza-based terrorist group, A. hinted.
The massacres against the Druze were “the same thing that happened on seventh of October, the same thing that happened in the Shoah,” Safady said, speaking of how the invaders cut the facial hair off the religiously observant Druze as an affront to their religious beliefs. “They raped women in the same way that they did on October 7. Everything was taken from Hamas.... Everything they did was a copy and paste for this genocide.”