BEIRUT, July 20. /TASS/. A swap of detainees and hostages between the Druze and Arab tribes planned for Sunday evening was derailed due to a ceasefire violation, Sham TV reported.
According to the television channel, Bedouin groups attacked Druze positions near Arika and al-Majdal in the Syrian Sweida governorate, which came under the control of the Druze community’s self-defense forces in the morning.
According to earlier reports, the swap of detainees and hostage was supposed to begin at six in the evening near Umm Zeitun. The Druze community’s sheikhs called on all parties "to cooperate and show maximum responsibility to ensure success of this process." They also demanded that the authorities immediately reestablish access to mobile communication and internet in the governorate.
Earlier in the day, supporters of the radical Druze cleric, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri had pushed Arab militias off the Arika and al-Majdal neighborhoods north of the city of Sweida. Following this, local Bedouins asked for help from neighboring areas. Apart from that, supporters of Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, who calls for closer relations with Israel and defiance of the Damascus authorities, hampered a government delegation accompanying humanitarian cargoes to enter the governorate. The Syrian authorities condemned these provocative actions.
Syrian interior ministry spokesman Nour Eddin Al-Baba said on July 19 that Arab tribal units had been withdrawn from the city of Sweida and its suburbs and Syrian Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa announced a ceasefire in the Sweida province to end clashes between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.