Entire Druze neighborhoods in Sweida lie in ruins, and at least 300 people are dead after days of intense clashes with Syrian government forces — an eruption that has now drawn Israeli airstrikes and raised fears of a wider regional war.
The violence, which broke out on July 13 following an incursion by militants reportedly aligned with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, has left both Druze and Arab Bedouin communities reeling. Witnesses and observers allege that Syrian troops looted homes and killed civilians in what many fear is a coordinated effort to crush Druze resistance in the south.
But the roots of this crisis run much deeper — into longstanding tensions between the Druze and local Arab Bedouin tribes in southern Syria.
