BEIRUT, July 20. /TASS/. Leaders of the Druze community in Syria’s Sweida governorate have said they are ready to exchange prisoners with Arab tribes after the recent clashes, the Sham TV channel reported, citing a Druze sheikhs’ statement.
According to the statement, prisoners of war and hostages will be released near Umm Zeitun at six in the evening. "We call on everyone to cooperate and show maximum responsibility to ensure success of this process," it says. "We hope for the safe and secure return of our abducted sons, daughters, and children."
The statement also calls on the authorities to immediately reestablish access to mobile communication and internet in the governorate.
On July 19, Druze sheikhs supported the deployment of the Syrian interim government’s security forces along the administrative borders of the Sweida governorate not to let armed Arab tribal militias infiltrate the governorate. They also said that they agreed on the opening of humanitarian corridors near Bosra al-Kharir and Bosra al-Sham.
Syrian interior ministry spokesman Nour Eddin Al-Baba said in the early hours on Sunday that armed clashes in the city of Sweida had ceased completely. On Saturday, Syrian Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa announced an immediate ceasefire in the Sweida province to end clashes between militias and Druze self-defense forces. The ceasefire was announced in accordance with the reconciliation plan, drafted with the help of international mediators.
The situation in Syria aggravated on July 13 when clashes between Arab tribal militias and Druze self-defense groups broke out in the heavily Druze-populated Sweida governorate. On July 15, the Syrian army entered the governorate’s administrative center, the city of Sweida, and launched a mop-up operation to restore order. Shortly after, Israel began delivering airstrikes on Syrian army convoys, claiming that the operation was geared to protect the Druze population. On July 16, Israel hit a number of strategic targets in Damascus.
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.