CAIRO, July 16. /TASS/. Several dozen bodies were discovered at a hospital in the Syrian city of Suwayda after illegal armed units left, the country’s Health Ministry reported.
"After illegal armed units were driven out of Suwayda’s National Hospital, several dozen bodies were discovered there. An examination made it clear that those were the bodies of civilians and Syrian security officials," the ministry said in a statement on Telegram. The number of people whose bodies were found in Suwayda and the cause of their deaths have not yet been disclosed.
Syrian Health Minister Musaab al-Ali told the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) that a convoy of 15 ambulances was unable to enter the province of Suwayda, impeded by Israeli aircraft. "The planes open fire at all moving vehicles," al-Ali said, adding that apart from ambulance teams, ten surgeons had also been dispatched to Suwayda, along with two vehicles carrying medicines and medical supplies.
Clashes between Arab militia and Druze self-defense units broke out in the province of Suwayda on July 13. On July 15, the Syrian army entered the eponymous city and launched a mop-up operation in order to stabilize the situation. Soon after that, Israel started carrying out strikes on the Syrian army’s military columns, citing the need to protect the Druze population.
The Druze are an Arabic-speaking ethnic and religious group residing in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan.Syria has 700,000 Druze, who are the country’s third largest ethnic and religious minority after the Kurds and the Alawites.