Syrian Druze in Sweida Targeted in Sectarian Killing Spree

"We reached a formula that allows us to defuse the crisis by evacuating the families of our compatriots from the Bedouin and the tribes who are currently in Sweida city."

Sweida internal security chief Ahmad Dalati

 

"The dead bodies sent a terrible smell through all the floors of the hospital."

"The situation has been terrible. We couldn't walk around the hospital without wearing a mask."

"[The dead and wounded included women, children and the elderly]." 

Hisham Breik, nurse, Sweida national hospital

 

"We have imposed a security cordon in the vicinity of Sweida to keep it secure and to stop the fighting there."

"This will preserve the path that will lead to reconciliation and stability in the province."

Syrian Interior Minister Ahmad al-Dalati 

Syrian Bedouin families ride in a convoy led by Red Crescent vehicles in Busra al-Harir, heading to Daraa after being evacuated from Sweida following more than a week of violent clashes, July 21, 2025. (Malek Khattab/AP)

 

 Bedouin families were evacuated by Syrian authorities on Monday from the city of Sweida during a ceasefire in the southern province following a week of sectarian/tribal bloodshed during which time over a thousand people were killed, both militants on either side, and civilians. The dead were mostly Druze, not  only fighters but civilians, including women and children. When the regime's military was dispatched ostensibly to put an end to the fighting and restore order, what it really did was to support the Bedouin side of the conflict, joining them in a killing spree of Druze in the Druze-majority city of Sweida.

 

Atrocities were recorded for posterity in barbaric scenes of beheadings, mutilation, and unrestrained rape and butchery, reminiscent of the October 7, 2023 invasion of southern Israel by Hamas terrorists on a bloody spree of monumental proportions in sadistic savagery. The Bedouin Sunni Muslims and the Shia-linked Druze played out ancient enmities in which human restraint against the passion of murderous impulses were forgotten, leaving corpses of women, children and the elderly lying in the streets, in their homes, in a macabre scene of hate and vengeance.

 

In the wake of the ceasefire that finally took effect to stop the killing rampage, convoys of buses and other vehicles entered Sweida, exiting finally, packed with Bedouin civilians, entire families, women and children to be taken out of the majority Sweida city, heading for reception centres in Daraa province next door, and on to the capital Damascus, with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent coordinating the evacuation. An entirety of 1,500 people from Bedouin tribes were to be evacuated.

 

Syrian Bedouin families ride in the back of trucks carrying their belongings, in a convoy led by Red Crescent vehicles in Busra al-Harir, heading to Daraa after being evacuated from Sweida following more than a week of violent clashes, July 21, 2025. (Malek Khattab/AP)

 

 The ceasefire served to put an end to the sectarian violence after the week of unremitting horror that left 1,100 mostly Druze fighters and civilians dead, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights monitoring body. Among the  dead were hundreds of government security personnel as well. Druze and Bedouin tribes began their violent clash on July13, the fighting bringing intervening Sunni Arab tribes to converge in support of the Bedouin. Government forces were identified by witnesses siding with the Bedouin and themselves committing summary executions on entering Sweida last week. 

 

The situation intensified externally when Israel became involved, concerned for the welfare of the Druze, reflective of Israel's own sizeable Druze population, loyal to the State of Israel. The plight of the Syrian Druze convinced Israel to send fighter bombers into Syria, where Israeli warplanes hit the Syrian Ministry of Defense, as well as targeting a location nearby the Presidential palace in Damascus to drive home its message of support and protection of the Syrian Druze, as well as a need for a buffer zone at the Golan Heights.

 

Druze from southern Syria under attack fled to Israel for haven, while Druze with Israeli citizenship moved in the opposite direction -- into Syria to fight with their Druze brethren in Sweida, ignoring the warning to remain in Israel and not enter Syria. On the other side, Sunni Arab tribal militias flooded into Syria to converge on Sweida in support of the Bedouin. Druze groups regained control when the Bedouin and tribal fighters withdrew from areas of Sweida on the implementation of the ceasefire.The U.S. took credit for having negotiated a ceasefire between Syria's Islamist government and Israel.

 

Israel launched dozens of airstrikes in the Druze-majority Sweida province, targeting government forces who had effectively sided with the Bedouins.  Still from video

 

Beyond the checkpoints where security forces had erected sand mounds blocking some entrances to Sweida, Sunni tribal fighters armed with machine guns remained in place on the roadside beyond the checkpoints. In Sweida city, dozen of bodies awaited identification at the main hospital where a forensic medical official revealed "we still have 97 unidentified corpses". 

 

Over 128,000 people were displaced by the violence. Collecting and identifying bodies carries on. Over 450 bodies were brought to the Sweida national hospital, more being recovered from streets and homes. Hospitals and health centres in Sweida province were out of service amidst "reports of unburied bodies raisin serious public health concerns", according to the United Nations Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. 

 

Humanitarian access to Sweida "remains highly constrained", the UN reported late Sunday. That day, a first humanitarian aid convoy entered the city where power and water cuts and shortages of fuel, food and medical supplies -- including body bags -- prevail. Despite isolated gunfire in areas north of Sweida city, the ceasefire is holding.

Syrian government security forces block Bedouin fighters, foreground, from entering Sweida province, in Busra al-Harir village, southern Syria, July 20, 2025. (Omar Sanadiki/AP)