Israel says his fighter jets are bombing an area near the presidential palace in Syria's capital Damascus, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sworn to protect Druza's religious minority after days of deadly sectarian violence.
Netanyahu said the strike was a “clear message to the Syrian regime”, that Israel “would not allow forces to the south of Damascus or any threat to the Druz community”.
There was no immediate response from the Syrian government.
However, he rejected “foreign intervention” when Israel strikes south of Damascus on Wednesday during clashes between Druz's artillery, security forces and allied Sunni Islamist fighters.
The spiritual leader of Druza in Syria, Sheikh Hittrate Al-Hidjri, condemned violence as an “unjustified genocidal campaign” against his community and called for intervention by “international forces to maintain peace.”
The Syrian government has said it has unleashed forces of security to be of a “outdoor” region, which it has accused of inciting clashes.
Foreign Minister Asaaad al-Shibani also warned that “any appeal for external intervention, with every pretext or slogan, only leads to further deterioration and division.”
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), based in the UK monitoring group, at least 102 people were killed this week in the Ashrafi Sanai, a city in the southern suburbs of Damascus, mainly the suburb of Jaraman's Druza, and the southern province of Soveya.
It says it includes 10 civilian civilians and 21 Drui fighters, as well as 35 more Druzi fighters who were shot in an ambush by security forces while traveling from Suvida to Damascus on Wednesday. Thirty members of the General Security Service and Allied fighters have also been killed, the statement said.
Violence erupted in Jaraman on Monday night after an audio clip of a man insulting the Prophet Mohammed spread to social media and angry Sunni Muslims. He is attributed to a friend of a friend, but he denied any responsibility. The interior ministry also said a preliminary investigation had cleared it.
Druza's faith is an offspring of Shiite Islam with its own unique identity and beliefs. Half of a million followers live in Syria, where they make up about 3% of the population, while in Lebanon, Israel has a fewer communities and the occupied Golan altitudes.
The transitional president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has promised to protect the many religious and ethnic minorities of the country, as his Sunni Islamist group leads the offensive of the rebels, which removed the Bashar al-Assad regime in 13 years after a 13-year devastating civil war.
However, the mass murders of hundreds of civilians from the Assad Minority sect in the western coastal region in March, during clashes between the new Assad's new security forces and loyalists, have hardened fears among minority communities.
In February, Israel's Prime Minister warned that he would not “tolerate a threat to the Druz Community in southern Syria” by the country's new security forces.
Netanyahu also demanded the complete demilitarization of Subitida and two other southern provinces, saying that Israel saw the Sunni Islamist group of Sharaa, Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) as a threat. HTS is a former al -Qaeda branch, which is still identified as a UN terrorist organization, USA, EU and UK.
The Israeli military has already committed hundreds of strikes in Syria to destroy the country's military assets in the last four months. He has also sent troops to the non-obscured demilitarized buffer zone between the high heights occupied by Israeli and Syria, as well as several adjacent areas and the peak of Mount Hermon.