A volatile mix of sectarian violence and regional power politics
Israel’s air force destroyed several Syrian army tanks on Monday after the armor rolled toward the flash-point city of Suwayda, where fierce street battles between local Druze fighters and Bedouin tribe members have killed at least 89 people and wounded more than 100 since Sunday. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the vehicles violated a long-standing no-tank zone near the Golan Heights and represented “a potential threat to Israel.”
In an earlier analysis, The Jerusalem Post noted that Jerusalem’s demand for a demilitarized buffer in southern Syria has left “a vacuum” around Suwayda, repeatedly drawing the IDF into rapid overflights and precision strikes whenever heavy weapons appear in the area.
Cycle of violence
Monday’s firefight was the first to reach downtown Suwayda since Syria’s new transitional government replaced the Assad regime last December. Eyewitnesses described automatic weapons crackling from rooftops and pickup trucks, while mortars lobbed indiscriminately across narrow alleyways. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the dead include 50 Druze residents—among them two children—18 Bedouins, 14 Defense Ministry soldiers, and seven unidentified men.
The pattern has become grimly familiar. Localized clashes erupt, Damascus deploys armor to re-impose order, Israel strikes or threatens to strike, and an uneasy truce follows—only to unravel weeks later. Monday’s IDF strike marks at least the third such intervention in six months.
Israel’s red lines and hidden diplomacy
Israeli officials insist the latest action was “strictly tactical,” aimed at preventing Syrian armor from entrenching near the Golan frontier. Yet senior defense sources confirm that Shin Bet and military intelligence have also tracked Iranian-backed militias seeking to exploit the chaos. In late June, Israeli commandos captured two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) cells operating on Mount Hermon, underscoring the wider regional stakes. “Every vacuum invites Tehran,” an IDF source told the Kan public broadcaster.
Behind the scenes, Jerusalem and Damascus have maintained quiet talks—mediated in part by Washington—about formalizing the demilitarized zone first outlined in 1974. Israeli analysts warn, however, that deeper involvement could mire the Jewish state in Syria’s fragmented post-war landscape and hand propaganda victories to Iran and Hezbollah.
Damascus under pressure
Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa faces a delicate dilemma. His Defense Ministry admitted Monday that “institutional vacuum” and understaffed security forces had hampered efforts to contain the violence. While government troops have reopened humanitarian corridors, Druze leaders accuse Damascus of siding with Bedouin factions and failing to secure the arterial Suwayda-Damascus highway.
The influential Men of Dignity militia, a Druze self-defense force formed during the civil war, mobilized its fighters and demanded that the state “prevent chaos” while promising not to surrender its arms. “Suwayda was and will remain a land of dignity and coexistence,” the group declared, “but we will not allow it to become an arena for settling scores.”
Sectarian fault lines
Most of Syria’s 700,000 Druze inhabit rugged Jebel al-Druze, where they stockpiled light weapons during the Assad years to fend off jihadist incursions. Many Bedouin clans, by contrast, move seasonally across the Hauran plain and accuse Druze militias of blocking pasture routes and monopolizing water wells. Analysts say scant state authority, drought, and post-war gun proliferation have amplified every local grievance.
Outlook
Diplomats fear that without a durable accord—one guaranteeing Druze autonomy, Bedouin grazing rights, and a strictly enforced no-armor zone—southern Syria risks sliding into a war-within-a-war that could drag in Israel, Iran, and Jordan. For now, Israel’s message is clear: tanks stay north of Suwayda or face the air force. Whether that deterrent leads to stability or resets the countdown to the next eruption remains an open—and increasingly urgent—question.
Photo: The Jerusalem Post