Disturbing reports and videos are circulating on social media that appear to show the deliberate targeting and dehumanization of the Druze community in Syria.
After a fabricated audio recording of a man cursing the Prophet Muhammad was released last week and was associated with a Druze cleric, violent clashes erupted outside Damascus, targeting the minority Druze community. The violence resulted in more than 100 deaths, with a majority of them being Druze.
Some of those videos and reports include the execution of dozens of Druze men traveling in a convoy on a highway when they were ambushed and the forcible removal of a Druze man’s mustache, which holds significance to their culture and beliefs.
“The beard for the Druze is like a kippah,” said Israeli Druze Nisreen Abo-Asale, who lives in the predominantly Druze community of Daliat al-Carmel. “It’s dehumanizing.”
“This should have never happened,” said Lebanese Druze activist Dr. Ghassan Bou Diab, who is also the director of the Demokrattia Center for Research and Strategic Studies in Washington. “This is the Druze October 7. This is October 7 against Druze.”
Druze leaders worry for their future in the Middle East
Although the Druze communities in Israel, Lebanon, and Syria are in different locations, all of them are interconnected with each other, as many of them have relatives in each country.
The images and videos that emerged have left Druze in the region and around the world in disbelief, with some telling The Jerusalem Post that the stripping of ethnic symbols and mass executions of their own people reminds them of the Holocaust and the feeling they woke up to on October 7.
“We are afraid of another Holocaust. We’re from Israel, we’re part of this story of the Holocaust. On October 7, we were also afraid of another Holocaust,” said Abo-Asale. “It’s not only post-trauma for the Jews, it’s also our post-trauma because we are also a minority, exactly like the Jewish people. We understand, we live it. We are the same.”
Since the clashes began and because of ongoing protests from Israeli Druze demanding for the IDF to take action, the military conducted airstrikes on a Syrian extremist group planning to attack the Druze in Suwayda, according to officials.
Overnight, the IDF conducted an airstrike near Damascus’s presidential palace. Both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz stated the strike was “a clear message” that Israel would not allow any danger to the Druze community.
SOME DRUZE believe the Israeli government should have taken actions to defend the Syrian Druze immediately when Ahmed al-Sharaa, who was once part of al-Qaeda, overthrew the Assad regime, especially as Israel’s open support for the Syrian Druze might have made them a target.
“This didn’t start a few days ago, it started months ago since Sharaa took over the Assad regime,” said Abo-Asale. “They said publicly they will defend the Druze in Syria, and in the Arab world; it made a very negative mindset that the Druze in Syria only are seen as serving a Zionist conspiracy.”
The IDF has conducted recent airstrikes in Syria, in some cases saying they targeted military infrastructure left over by the Assad regime. Israel has also extended its arm to the Syrian Druze community since the fall of the Assad regime, making history by allowing two separate groups of religious Druze leaders to enter Israel and visit sacred sites on the Golan Heights for the first time in 50 years.
“Netanyahu should have known better that there would be consequences for this visit, and [he] should have prepared a countermeasure in case something like this happened,” said Diab. “This is what they [Syrian extremist groups] are trained to do. All what they do, what they speak is the language of hatred and killing and murdering and raping. This is their language.”
The violence against the Syrian Druze came a few days after their religious leaders made their second visit to Israel. Diab believes the minority group is now caught in the middle of other regimes and countries, like Turkey, retaliating against Israel for wanting to normalize ties with the ethnic minority.
“The Druze are ready, able, and historically prepared for that type of normalization, but normalization has a high cost,” said Diab. “If you have a problem with Netanyahu, solve it on your own, not on the Druze blood.”
Diab said he’s been in contact with Syrian Druze, who are expressing anger, fear, and uncertainty of what will happen next to their community.
“After the Alawites, Christians, are other minorities next?” he asked. “This is really shocking and heartbreaking.”