BEIRUT, July 14. /TASS/. Israel has struck Syrian defense forces convoys moving toward the city of Suwayda, the administrative center of the governorate of the same name located some 90 kilometers from Damascus, the Al Mayadeen television channel reported.

According to the TV channel, Israeli warplanes delivered three strikes on ground targets near the al-Mazra’ah neighborhood when mechanized units of the interim government’s interior and defense ministries were on their way to the country’s southern areas to stop clashes between Arab tribal militias and Druze self-defense forces.

According to the latest data, the clashes claimed the lives of at least 46 Druzes, 28 Bedouins, and four civilians. Government forces deployed to the area to stop the conflict lost 11 troops.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said earlier in the day that several tanks "were identified in the area between al-Mazra‘ah and Sami’, advancing toward As Suwayda in southern Syria." "The IDF struck the tanks in order to prevent their arrival to the area," it said. "The presence of these assets in southern Syria may pose a threat to the State of Israel."

Following the change of power in Damascus in late 2024, Israel has repeatedly voiced support for the Syrian Druze community and expressed its resolve to help them defend themselves if the situation destabilizes.

The Druze are a tight-knit ethnoreligious Arabic-speaking group living mainly in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan who adhere to a specific faith that split from Shiite Islam in the Middle Ages. Israeli Druzes live in Galilee in the north of the country and serve in the Israeli army and police along with Jews. However, after Israel gained control over the Golan Heights in the Six-Day War in 1967, most of the Druzes living there have preserved their Syrian citizenship. Syria’s Druze population numbers around 700,000, being the third biggest ethnoreligious minority after the Kurds and Alawites.