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Israel strikes Syria
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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the Damascus headquarters served as a command center for deploying regime forces to Suwayda, a southern Syrian region gripped by days of deadly clashes between government troops, Druze militias, and Bedouin groups.
Israel says it's trying to protect the Druze community in south-west Syria, where there have been deadly sectarian clashes.
An Israeli military official said, "we are reinforcing forces in the Golan Heights and along the border, ready for a multitude of scenarios."
The attack follows a wave of Israeli strikes on Syrian government forces during two days of sectarian clashes between local Druze and Bedouin populations.
Druse militiamen have been fighting with Bedouins in the Sweida Province, and Syrian government forces and the Israeli military are getting involved.
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The Israeli army said Wednesday that it struck near the entrance to the Syrian Ministry of Defense in Damascus. The strike came as clashes continued in the southern Syrian city of Sweida after a ceasefire between government forces and Druze armed groups collapsed.
"Silence and standing idly by are no longer an option,” Druze leader Sheikh Mowafak Tarif wrote. Israel's Druze spiritual leadership called on its community to prepare to assist their Syrian counterparts “by all means necessary,
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, said the clashes started after members of a Bedouin tribe in Sweida province set up a checkpoint where they attacked and robbed a Druze man, leading to tit-for-tat attacks and kidnappings between the tribes and Druze armed groups.
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