Syria declares ceasefire as forces enter Druze city amid sectarian violence

SWEIDA

Smoke billows during clashes in the predominantly Druze city of Sweida on July 15, 2025, following clashes between Bedouin tribes and Druze fighters.

Syria's defense minister on July 15 announced a ceasefire shortly after government forces entered a key city in Sweida province to halt the deadly violence in the country’s south.

The clashes began with a series of tit-for-tat kidnappings and attacks between members of local Sunni Bedouin tribes and Druze armed factions in the southern province, a center of the Druze community. A U.K.-based war monitor reported that 102 people killed in the fighting.

"To all units operating within the city of Sweida, we declare a complete ceasefire after an agreement with the city's notables and dignitaries," Syrian Defence Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra posted on X.

"We will begin handing over neighbourhoods in Sweida city to the Internal Security Forces as soon as the combing operations are completed," Abu Qasra said.

Authorities had initially announced a curfew in the city to contain the unrest.

On the same day, Israel carried out strikes against Syrian government forces in the Sweida region, saying it was acting to protect the Druze minority and vowing to ensure the area near the Israeli border remained demilitarized.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed the military "to immediately strike regime forces and weaponry that were brought into the Sweida region ... for the regime’s operations against the Druze," they said in a joint statement.

Media reported that at least four strikes as drones could be heard overhead and saw a damaged tank being towed away from the city, where bursts of gunfire were heard.

Israel has taken an aggressive stance toward Syria’s new leaders since the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a lightning rebel offensive led by Sunni Islamist insurgent groups in Decembe4 2024, saying it does not want militants near its borders. Israeli forces have seized a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone on Syrian territory along the border with the Golan Heights and have launched hundreds of airstrikes on military sites in Syria.

Earlier on July 15, religious leaders of the Druze community in Syria called for armed factions that have been clashing with government forces to surrender their weapons and cooperate with authorities as they entered the provincial capital of Sweida.

One of the main religious authorities later released a video statement retracting the call.

The initial statement called for armed factions in Sweida to “cooperate with the forces of the Ministry of Interior, not to resist their entry, and to hand over their weapons to the Ministry of Interior.”

Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hijri, a Druze spiritual leader who has been opposed to the government in Damascus, said in a video message that the previous statement by Druze leaders had been issued after an agreement with the authorities in Damascus but “they broke the promise and continued the indiscriminate shelling of unarmed civilians.”