Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has made some interesting new comments on the Syria situation over the weekend, at a moment the Israeli military (IDF) is occupying whole swathes of the country’s south in the wake of the December 8th ouster of Bashar al-Assad.
Sa’ar described Syria’s new government which is led by self-declared president Ahmed al-Sharaa (Jolani) as “a bunch of jihadists” who were “not elected… by the Syrian people.”
Israeli warns HTS against attacking the Druze of Jaramana…
The Israeli top diplomat stressed at a press conference in Jerusalem that “it is important that the new rulers of Damascus respect the rights of minorities,” and highlighted that “we also have a Druze community here in Israel.”
We should note that the irony is of course that Israel had supported the Islamist anti-Assad insurgency from the start of the war, including al-Qaeda elements – as even one CIA official at the time admitted.
The remarks came after fighting has engulfed the Damascus suburban city of Jaramana. Militants from Jolani’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) are clashing with Druze militants, in an effort to disarm all other factions except the Jolani regime’s HTS fighters. Syrian Christians also have a heavy presence in Jaramana.
The Druze are an ethno-religious minority offshoot of Islam considered heretical by Sunnis. Their communities are present in Syria, Lebanon, the Golan Heights region, and some areas of Israel/Palestine. In Syria, they are mostly in the south, and tend to live in intermixed villages with Christians of the ancient Hauran region.
Importantly, Israel might use the internal Syrian fighting to launch a further military intervention and landgrab, after reports have indicated the IDF already has units positioned just 20 to 25km south of Damascus:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed the Israel Defense Forces on Saturday to “prepare to defend” the Druze-majority city of Jaramana on the outskirts of Damascus in Syria.
A statement issued by Katz’s office said the Damascus suburb of Jaramana was “currently under attack by the forces of the Syrian regime.” Continue reading Israel warns Syria’s unelected jihadist gov’t: do not attack the Druze!




















![Women prepare food for iftar, or the fast-breaking meal, on the first day of Ramadan in Jabalia, northern Gaza [Bashar Talbeb/AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Gaza-1740913900.jpg?resize=770%2C513&quality=80)





