Druze demonstrators blocked the roads in northern Israel Thursday evening and early Friday morning during a demonstration calling for the government to help the Druzes community in Syria in the midst of sectarian violence which has won dozens of lives in recent days.
The demonstrators closed several key traffic routes in the north of the country, including part of Highway 6 between the junction such as Kashish and the Ein Tut junction. Highway 85 was also closed to traffic at the intersection of Rama, as well as highway 65 at the tzalmon exchanger.
Road closings led to traffic jams, during which several fights broke out between the demonstrators and the drruze drivers asking them to clean the road, according to shared video clips online.
The images have also shown that the demonstrators are burning tires in blocked intersections and climbing traffic posts to hang Druze flags.
In addition to the demonstrations of the highway, dozens of demonstrators gathered near the home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the coastal city of Caesarea.
Sheikh Muafak Tariff, the spiritual leader of the Druze community of Israel, with Yisrael Beyté MK Hamad Amar then published a video declaration calling the Druze demonstrators to clean the roads and return home.
תיעוד: מדורות על הכבsence
(אורלי אלקלעי) pic.twitter.com/kso4ucbqvl– כאן חדשות (@Kann_News) May 1, 2025
According to Ynet, many of these protests were reservists from FDI of Druze who believe that Israel fails to their community in Syria.
“We receive growing relationships from our brothers that the sheikhs come out to defend their villages themselves and are slaughtered, while Israel stands and does nothing to stop these atrocities as they promised that they would do it,” a reservist told the mediator.
“There is a historical alliance between the Jews and the Druze, and just as we got up to fight for the State and die if necessary, on each occasion and in particular in the face of the horrors of October 7, we must get up and stop the current atrocities in Syria which are directed against our brothers,” he added.
In the midst of demonstrations, a group of Druze soldiers sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding an action by TDS “to stop the massacre of our Druze brothers on the other side of the border in Syria – just like you and the Minister of Defense.”
The signatories, who, according to Kan’s public broadcaster, included both reservists and soldiers of the conscript, also said that they were ready to go alone.
“Hundreds of Druze soldiers are ready to immediately fight alongside our brothers to save them even at the cost of risks that do it for our well-being and our life,” they wrote.
תיעוד מה team בנ העדה הדרוזית בצומת עמיעד. צילום: לפי סעיף 27 א pic.twitter.com/npd2mww8ue
– החדשות – N12 (@ n12news) May 1, 2025
The demonstrations intervened after the spiritual leader of the Syrian Druze Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri condemned what he called a “genocidal campaign” against his community and exhorted the immediate intervention by the “international forces to maintain peace and prevent the continuation of these crimes”.
During a meeting of Druze leaders, alumni and armed groups in the city of Sweida, the community agreed that it was “an inseparable part of the unified Syrian homeland,” said a spokesperson.
“We reject partition, separation or disengagement,” added the spokesperson.
The Rassemblement des Druze urged the government on Thursday to hire “Sweida judicial police from the province’s residents” on the issue.
The Israeli soldiers are sticking to the guard as Druze men demonstrate in solidarity with the community of Syrians Druze, near the border barrier in the village of Majdal Shams in the heights of Golan on April 30, 2025. (Jalaa Marey / AFP)
The new authorities of Syria, which have roots in the terrorist organization of Al-Qaeda, have sworn an inclusive rule in the multi-confessional and multi-hethnic country, but must also face the pressures of radical Islamists.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Asaad Al-Shaibani, reiterated the rejection by Syria of requests for international intervention, displaying on X that “national unity is the solid foundation of any process of stability or renewal”.
“Any call to an external intervention, under any pretext or slogan, leads to additional deterioration and division,” he added.
Israel considers new forces in Syria as jihadists and made strikes near Damascus on Wednesday, which followed a new strike near the presidential palace in the Syrian capital early Friday morning.
“This is a clear message to the Syrian regime. We will not allow forces to be sent south of Damascus or to a threat to the Druze community,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, in a joint statement on the Syrian’s strike, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, said the FDI later.
Israel has attacked hundreds of military sites in Syria since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad and said that his soldiers would achieve objectives of the government “if violence against Druze communities continued”.
He also sent troops to the demilitarized buffer zone which had used to separate the Israeli and Syrian forces on the heights of Golan and expressed his support for the Syrian Druze.
Several Syrian druze injured in recent violence have been brought to Israel for medical treatment.
In a statement Thursday, the spokesperson for the US State Department Tammy Bruce said that violence and rhetoric against the Druze community in Syria were “reprehensible and unacceptable” and called on the provisional authorities to hold responsible authors.
The agencies contributed to this report.
