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Syria Withdraws Bedouin Fighters From Druze-Majority City
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Oklahoma man and Druze community member Hosam Saraya was executed alongside his family in Syria. State lawmakers are sharing their reactions.
Trapped in her home in As-Suwayda, Syrian pharmacist Hala Saraya recounts the brutal killings of her family and pleads for the world to hear the Druze community's cry for help.
By Laila Bassam DAMASCUS (Reuters) -Sectarian clashes escalated in Syria's predominantly Druze region of Sweida on Saturday, with machinegun fire and mortar shelling ringing out after days of bloodshed as the Islamist-led government struggled to implement a ceasefire.
Dr Talat Amer, a surgeon at Sweida National Hospital in southern Syria, worked tirelessly for three days as bombs fell and the building came under siege from government and militia forces.
The Druze religious sect, enmeshed in an outbreak of tit-for-tat violence in Syria, began roughly 1,000 years ago as an offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam.
At the center of a crisis in Syria are the Druze — a secretive religious minority that long carved out a precarious identity across Syria, Lebanon and Israel.
Hundreds of Druze from Israel pushed across the border in solidarity with their Syrian cousins they feared were under attack. Many then met relatives they had never seen before.
As of mid-2025, 6,006 Druze in the Golan, roughly 20% of the 29,000-strong community, hold Israeli citizenship. This surge reflects not only a growing willingness to formally align with Israel, but also an acceleration of a trend that predates the latest violence in Syria.
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