Israeli warplanes carried out a series of airstrikes on military targets belonging to the Syrian army in the outskirts of Syria’s capital Damascus and its southern governorate of Daraa on Tuesday, February 25.
The airstrikes were launched after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials called for the “demilitarization” of Syria. On Sunday, February 23, Netanyahu said that his government will not allow Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) nor the new Syrian army which is being formed to “enter the areas south of Damascus.”
“We demand the complete demilitarisation of southern Syria in the provinces of Quneitra, Deraa and Suweida from the forces of the new regime,” the Israeli PM said.
Netanyahu further declared that the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) will continue occupying the summit of Mount Hermon (known as Jabal al-Sheikh) in the occupied Golan Heights “indefinitely” on the pretext of protecting the adjacent “buffer zone” from the HTS and the Syrian army in the making.
Israel’s Defense Minister, Israel Katz, reiterated Netanyahu’s calls for demilitarizing Syria on Tuesday. Confirming that the IOF carried out aerial assaults on Syrian military sites, Katz said: “We will not allow southern Syria to become southern Lebanon.”
“Any attempt by the Syrian regime forces and the country’s terrorist organizations to establish themselves in the security zone in southern Syria will be met with fire,” he added.
Israel is drawing Syria’s Druze community into its expansionist project’s equation
To consolidate his false security claims, Netanyahu has been trying to lure the Druze community in southern Syria and forcibly involve them in his expansionist agenda.
On the one hand, Netanyahu used the Druze as a pretext to stay in southern Syria, claiming that the IOF will remain stationed there to protect them from any sectarian threat posed by the HTS.
On the other hand, recent media reports revealed that the Israeli government is seeking to bring Syrian Druze citizens into Israel for employment. It is said that these plans were sought in response to requests from Syrian Druze seeking family reunification with their relatives in the occupied Golan Heights.
Meanwhile, others suggest that the plans aim at creating job opportunities for the Syrian Druze, as Israel’s control of the “buffer zone” in Syria hinders them from working in this area, especially in their agricultural lands.
Syrian Druze reject Israel’s invasion of Syria
For decades Israel succeeded in garnering the allegiance of the Druze community in the northern Palestinian areas it occupied in 1948, recruiting up to 83% of the community into the IOF.
Nevertheless, this does not seem to be the scenario for the Druze community in Syria, who consider themselves an integral part of the Syrian people. This community has historically opposed the Israeli occupation of their territory, and overwhelmingly resisted Israel’s repeated coercive efforts to force them to accept Israeli citizenship.
Protesting against Netanyahu’s occupation and demilitarization statements, Syrians, including members of the Druze community, gathered in public squares in Syria’s southern governorates on Monday, February 24.
Protesters carried banners that rejected Israel’s aggression and invasion of Syria, and chanted slogans such as “Netanyahu, you pig, Syria is not for division,” and “Syria is free, Israel get out!”
“The people of Sweida are part of Syria and will accept nothing but the Syrian state. The Syrian law is their protector and the guarantor of their rights,” one of the banners carried by Druze protesters read.
