In the desert night outside Suwayda, an elderly man leans on a cane, wrapped in a fleece over traditional robes, his pockets lined with ammunition. “We’ll work with anyone who treats us fairly,” he says. But if they don’t, “even a sick man throws his stick and takes up arms.”
The man is Sheikh Yahya Hajjar, leader of Rijal al-Karameh (Men of Dignity), the most prominent Druze militia in Syria. During a recent trip to Suwayda and surrounding regions, I spoke with fighters, religious leaders, and residents who described their reality in stark terms, explaining how the Druze were isolated, felt threatened, and had been left to fend for themselves.
In recent weeks, more than 100 Druze were reportedly killed after a doctored video circulated online, falsely portraying a Druze man mocking the Prophet Muhammed. Violence quickly spread through Suwayda and Druze communities around Damascus. The government disavowed responsibility, blaming “outlaws,” but the footage of tanks, shootings, and the public humiliation of Druze flooded social media.
In one clip, gunmen compel an older man to bleat like a sheep. “Are you really asking me to do this?” he says, before being slapped repeatedly. In another, young Druze men have their mustaches forcibly shaved—an act meant to degrade them, targeting a deeply-rooted cultural symbol. Humiliation, long a hallmark of Syria’s authoritarian tactics, has returned in force. In response, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, a spiritual leader of the Druze in Syria, issues an urgent appeal for international protection, calling the attacks an “act of extermination.”
Anti-Druze sentiment spread elsewhere too. In Hama, protesters chanted that the “Druze are enemies of God.” At a university in Homs, another protest suggested that members of the community should be slaughtered, leading to an exodus of students back to Druze-majority areas. “We have a target on our back,” one resident told me.
This isn’t the first time. In 2015, fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra, a predecessor of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which is led by Syria’s president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, killed at least 20 Druze villagers in Qalb Lozeh in Idlib Governorate. Others were coerced into converting to Sunni Islam, while Druze shrines were desecrated and graves defaced. In 2018, the Islamic State group carried out coordinated bombings and raids in Suwayda, killing over 250 people in the Druze-majority city and abducting dozens of women and children.
For many Druze, Sharaa, who fought in Iraq alongside the Islamic State before founding Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham in Syria, is seen as a continuation of extremist ideologies. They do not view today’s violence as isolated incidents, but as part of ongoing campaigns of terror that revive centuries-old Druze fears of being branded heretics and outcasts.
The pain of being abandoned by Syria’s new government is especially acute given the Druze role in the Syrian uprising. In Suwayda, protests that began in August 2023 over rising fuel prices quickly morphed into broader demands for regime change. Hundreds of protestors gathered in Suwayda’s Sahat al-Karama (Dignity Square) every Friday. The timing, coinciding with Assad’s cautious rehabilitation by parts of the international community, unsettled many. Having seen this before, I cautioned that, if given the opportunity, Assad would respond to Suwayda just as he had to other defiant Syrian cities—with bombings, forced displacement, and mass arrests. Still, as Assad’s grip weakened, Rijal al-Karameh joined opposition groups from Daraa and advanced toward the capital.
“We were in the operations room with other factions,” Sheikh Hajjar told me. “We got to Damascus hours before Hay’at [Tahrir al-Sham],” he added, letting out a quiet laugh. It had been a bold gamble. When the regime finally collapsed, the Druze expected recognition as partners in the uprising.
Instead, they were met with a cold shoulder. Sharaa sidelined Druze leaders from the country’s transitional process. Sheikh Hijri was excluded from the National Dialogue and the drafting process for the temporary constitution agreed in March. In our meeting, he described receiving only vague assurances from low-level envoys, his frustration shared by Hajjar. Without clear guarantees that post-war Syria would be a place “for all colors, not just one,” Hijri warned, the entry of government-affiliated forces “would be seen as an occupation.”
In Hader, a mixed border town near the occupied Golan Heights, tensions were palpable. A Druze sheikh had recently been shot in what many believe was a hate crime. Days later, graffiti defaced a shrine: “Shrine for the Druze and klab [dogs],” was scrawled on the structure. With no real government protection, the Druze have taken security into their own hands. Local militias patrol streets, resolve disputes, and repel incursions.
Israel has stepped into this vacuum, portraying itself as the guardian of the Druze. Days after the recent violence, Israeli warplanes launched their broadest strikes in Syria, including near the presidential palace.
Alongside its military actions, Israel has also deployed a more symbolic force: its Druze citizens. Many Druze acknowledge that religious and cultural expression is more openly safeguarded in Israel than in Lebanon or Syria, the two other countries where this million-strong community also resides. “They at least have their rights there,” Sheikh Hijri told me in our interview, “but we are still waiting.” In a carefully staged moment, Israel facilitated a pilgrimage for Syrian Druze to a holy site in northern Israel, transporting religious figures on military buses through recently occupied Syrian territory under police escort.
But while Druze loyalty is publicly praised in Israel and their flag flies freely, a right of expression not granted to Palestinians citizens of the country, most saw through the performance. Druze in Israel are the only Arabs required to serve in the military. They are deployed in Gaza, man West Bank checkpoints, and oversee detention centers holding Palestinians, many without trial. Their towns remain economically marginalized and plagued by neglect and crime. The 2018 Nation State Law codified their second-class status. The Druze have been severed from their historical and cultural roots, and Israel increasingly treats them not as part of a broader Arab or Muslim population, but as a conveniently distinct ethnoreligious group.
During my trip, residents in Hader said Israeli officials had visited them the day before, offering aid and reassurances. “They take our water already,” one man told me, gesturing toward Mount Hermon, whose snow-fed rivers cross Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. “We know nothing good will come.” A resident in Suwayda said it more bluntly: “Where were they when we were being slaughtered by [the Islamic State]?” she asked, referencing the massacre in 2018. Pointing to Israel’s seizure of 400 square kilometers of Syrian territory after the fall of the Assad regime—a move the Israelis have said would last indefinitely—she added: “This isn’t about protection. It’s about expansion.”
Last week, Israel’s intentions were laid bare. When Druze in Israel attempted to cross the border and join the fight in Syria, they were stopped by the Israeli authorities, prompting road-blocking protests in the north. Even Israeli Druze scholars and politicians have raised concerns. One former Knesset member warned that the community was being used as “a tool serving Israel’s long-term policies.”
Amid these unfolding events, questions have resurfaced among diplomats and analysts: What’s happening with the Druze? Does Hijri trust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? Would a deal with the Syrian government resolve this? The subtext is unmistakable: placing blame on the community itself rather than on the Syrian state that has failed to protect it.
What’s missing from many of these reactions is a basic understanding of what it means to live as a minority shaped by a long history of persecution and generational trauma. “Women and kids are terrified and aren’t leaving their homes,” one resident told me. That fear reverberates across Syria’s marginalized communities, especially after hundreds if not over 1,000 Alawites were killed last March in attacks by armed groups and government-affiliated forces following acts of violence by remnants of the Assad regime targeting them. Amnesty International has urged that the killings should be investigated as possible war crimes.
Equally troubling is the growing tendency from the European Union and now the United States to excuse the failures of a government, which is neither accountable nor inclusive. Under pressure to show progress toward normalization and improve access to Damascus, too many foreign and domestic actors have turned a blind eye to the records of unelected, deeply compromised leaders who are now part of Syria’s new interim government. In an apparent rush to secure business deals, President Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia this week and announced a lifting of U.S. sanctions on Syria, before meeting with Ahmad al-Sharaa the next day in Riyadh. All this took place despite the fact that the Syrian government has failed to offer protections for minorities.
What’s happening to the Druze is not complicated. In resisting disarmament, they challenged the government’s narrative of a seamless post-conflict transition. The violent backlash that followed was no accident—it was a message. Speculation that Sheikh Hijri or the Druze have aligned with Israel misses a deeper reality. This is not a story of disloyalty; it is one of survival.
Caught between a fractured but still repressive government, emboldened extremist groups, and Israel’s regional maneuvers, Syria’s Druze are left once again to rely on the only constant they’ve ever known: themselves. “We will protect our land, dignity, and brethren,” Sheikh Hajjar told me. “Above all else.”
