A ceasefire brokered Wednesday by the Trump administration between Israel and Syria appeared to have held Thursday, as formerly jihadist militias now serving as the Syrian military withdrew from a Druze region.
As Breitbart News reported, Israel attacked Syrian targets approaching the Druze area near the Israeli border, as well as Syrian military headquarters in Damascus, after the Syrians attacked the local Druze population.
There had been shock and outrage across the mountainous region between Syria, Israel, and Lebanon where the Druze Arabs live, after reports of atrocities committed by Syrian forces against Druze in the Sweida area.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked, while also trying to discourage Druze residents of Israel from crossing into Syria to help their brethren, and also trying to prevent Druze crossing from Syria into Israel.
Many Syrian Druze villages have openly called for Israeli protection in the aftermath of the collapse of the regime of Bashar al-Assad — which, while brutal, kept Islamic extremists from harming Druze communities.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed alarm Wednesday at the fighting, and quickly arranged a ceasefire, hoping to preserve President Donald Trump’s diplomatic push for a Syrian-Israeli peace deal, as part of a larger regional expansion of the Abraham Accords that may include Saudi Arabia as well.
Syrian units withdrew from the Druze area and the Israeli attacks on Syrian positions stopped late on Wednesday.
Interim Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa, who was once a terrorist with a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head, addressed his nation Thursday, criticizing Israel and promising to protect the rights of the Druze.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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