Israeli warnings have produced a series of air strikes outside of Damascus and through Syria, after warnings from Israeli officials that the country would intervene to protect the sect of the minority Druze of Syria.
The air strikes have targeted a Syrian military site in the suburbs of Damascus in Harasta, as well as unknown targets in the province of Deraa in southern Syria and the province of Hama in northwestern Syria. According to the Syrian state media, at least one civilian was killed and four people were injured following the Israeli attacks.
The last series of strikes comes after Israel killed four civilians earlier Friday in a bombardment in southern Syria and struck the surroundings of the presidential palace of Syria.
The new leaders of Syria had angrily denounced the raids launched by the Air Force Israel against unidentified targets near the presidential palace earlier in the day, warning of a “dangerous escalation”.
The presidency of Syria described the strike “a dangerous escalation against public institutions and its sovereignty” and accused Israel of destabilizing the country.
Israeli officials said the attacks were intended to send a message to the Syrian government after days of bloody clashes near Damascus between government militia forces and Druze minority combatants.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, and Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement that the attack early on Friday, the second this week in Syria, was intended to dissuade the country’s new management from any hostile move against the Druze.
“This is a clear message to the Syrian regime. We will not allow the deployment of forces south of Damascus or a threat to the Druze community,” the statement said.
The Israeli army confirmed in a statement that the fighter planes struck near the president’s area of the president, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, in Damascus, but have given no other details.
Israel said that he will protect the Druze religious minority in Syria, a statement that most Druze leaders postponed.
Friday, the head of the United Nations Independent International Commission on Syria condemned Israeli strikes in an interview with Al Jazeera.
“Israeli attacks on Syria are absolutely unacceptable. There is nothing in international law that allows preventive bombing,” said Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, president of the committee.
The Damascus government took power after having ousted Bashar al-Assad in December of last year and was dominated by the militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, which has its roots in the Djihadist network al-Qaida. Although the new leaders of Syria have promised an inclusive rule in the multi-confessional and multi-hethnic country, they face pressure from extremists in their own ranks.
The clashes broke out in the Druze-Majority areas outside Damascus on Tuesday after an audio clip circulated on the social networks of a man making disparaging comments on the Prophet Muhammad. The clip, which has been falsely attributed to a Clerc Druze, has angry many Sunni Muslims, but may have been manufactured.
On Thursday, one of the three spiritual leaders of Syrians Druze, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, accused the Syrian government of what he called an “unjustified genocidal attack” against the minority community.
Hijri has published a statement calling for the international protection of Druze in southern Syria, asking international forces to “intervene immediately”. The other two religious leaders of Syrian Druze have chosen to negotiate directly with Damascus and rejected calls for international intervention in Syria.
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A surveillance group based in the United Kingdom, the Syrian Human Rights Observatory, said 56 people in Sahnaya and the suburbs of Druze-Majority Damas in Jaramana were killed, including local armed fighters and security forces.
The Druze religious sect began as an emanation of the 12th century of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. More than half of the approximately 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria, largely in the southern province of Sweida and some Damascus suburbs.
Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 war and annexed in 1981.
The Syrian government denied that one of its security forces was involved in clashes with the Druze, which followed a wave of massacres in March when the security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,700 civilians, mainly from the Al-Assad community in Bashar al-Assad, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Since the fall of the Assad regime in December, Israel has launched repeated air strikes on Syria, destroying military equipment and stocks, in what it says, it is the defense of the Druze. Israel also sent troops to what was a demilitarized area in the Golan Heights, on the southwest border of Syria with Israel, entering a key strategic ground where Syrian troops were once deployed.
Analysts in Israel say that the strategy aims to undermine the new Syrian government while protecting and co -opting a potential proxy ally in the country. The strategy is however controversial, some officials arguing that a stable Syria would better serve the interests of Israel.
Syrian president Sharaa told a member of the US Congress to visit last week that Damascus wanted to normalize links with Israel.
