During a council meeting of residents of six Druze villages in southern Syria held overnight Friday, it was decided that the jihadist Syrian rebels should be prevented from reaching the Druze area and suggested annexing their villages to the Israeli Golan Heights.
? Breaking: Representatives of six Druze villages in southern Syria request to be annexed to Israel ?? and live under Israeli rule ?pic.twitter.com/PXrzUdOuIV
— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) December 12, 2024
Out of some 55,000 Israelis living on the Golan, approximately 24,000 are Druze, an Arab esoteric religious group adhering to the Druze faith – an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and syncretic religion whose main tenets assert the unity of God, reincarnation, and the eternity of the soul.
Jethro, the priest of Midian and father of Zipporah, the wife of Moses, is considered to be the Prophet Shuaib, the spiritual founder and chief prophet of the Druze nation, and the ancestor of all Druze.
The Druze in Syria have long been loyal to the Assad regime, as their tradition requires following the leadership of the countries where they reside. As a result, since the 1967 Six-Day War, many Druze families have members on both sides of the ceasefire line.
After annexing the Golan on December 14, 1981, Israel offered citizenship to the Druze, but most rejected it and continued to identify themselves as Syrian. However, now that extremist Islamists with a reputation for murdering non-Muslims have taken over Syria, the estimated 600,000 Syrian Druze face an existential dilemma.
Thursday night’s meeting in southern Syria, in the Jabal al-Sheikh region, was held with the participation of dignitaries from the Druze community in the area, during which the dramatic demand to join their brethren in Israel was raised.
This decision, which was raised especially by the villagers of Hader, where the IDF has set up its defensive contingency against the rebels who are advancing south, reflects the position of the residents in the area, who proclaimed that they would stop Syrian Islamists from entering their area “over their dead bodies,” expressing firm opposition to any attempt to transfer the area to rebel control.
In 2010, before Syria’s devastating civil war, the Druze community in the country numbered about 700,000, comprising roughly 3% of the population. Nearly half of them—approximately 337,500—lived in the Suwayda Governorate, where Druze constituted about 90% of the population, alongside a notable Christian minority. Damascus and its surrounding areas were home to about 250,000 Druze, representing 35.7% of Syria’s Druze population. Smaller Druze communities resided on the eastern slopes of Mount Hermon, numbering around 30,000, and in 14 villages in Jabal al-Summaq in Idlib Governorate, where about 25,000 lived.
Tragedy struck the Druze village of Qalb Loze in northwestern Idlib Governorate on June 10, 2015, when a reported massacre left 20 to 24 Druze dead. In a more harrowing incident on July 25, 2018, ISIS-linked terrorists stormed the Druze-majority city of Suwayda, launching gunfights and suicide bombings that claimed the lives of at least 258 people, most of them civilians.
During the Syrian civil war, several Druze militias emerged, including Jaysh al-Muwahhidin, primarily a defensive force, which supported Bashar al-Assad’s government. The Druze-aligned Al-Jabal Brigade played a pivotal role in the 2024 Syrian opposition offensives that ultimately led to the fall of the Ba’athist regime.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with the spiritual leader of the Druze community in Israel Mawafek Tarif Thursday night, in the wake of the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and concerns for the safety of the Druze in the south of the country.
During the meeting, the Prime Minister and Sheikh Tarif discussed the need to maintain stability and security in the Druze concentrations in southern Syria during this sensitive period, and the importance of preventing extremist elements from reaching them from within the rebels.
