The Israel Defense Forces bombarded the Syrian regime’s military headquarters in Damascus on Wednesday after deadly chaos erupted near the border against the Druze minority, which lives in both Israel and Syria.

The Israeli military said it would not allow Syria’s current government to build up its forces near the border and commit violence against the Druze minority group in the city of Sweida. 

“The scenes that we are seeing from Syria are harsh and brutal,” the IDF told reporters. “To prevent these things from happening, we will not stand idly by.” 

Following the violence, a tenuous cease-fire was announced — but some Druze leaders have disavowed the truce.

The violence began on Monday when Syrian troops were deployed to the Sweida region to try and quell the fighting between the Druze and Bedouin armed forces, the latter of which were accused by human rights groups of inciting the violence when a Druze man was beaten and robbed at a security checkpoint.

Druze follow a religion that is an offshoot of Islam, with its people spread across Syria, Lebanon and Israel. 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the situation in Syria “is complicated,” citing the historical rivalry between the Druze and Bedouin.

“It led to an unfortunate situation and a misunderstanding between the Israeli-side and the Syrian-side,” he said, adding that the US was in talks with both nations to keep the cease-fire stable.

The group has accused the new Syrian government of alienating them, with fears rising that they would be the next group targeted by Damascus after the mass killings of the Alawite minority — the ethnic group of outsted President Bashar al-Asad — in March. 

The fears appeared to bear fruit when the Syrian forces arrived in Sweida and joined the pro-government Bedouins in fighting the Druze militias. 

The subsequent fighting around Sweida left around 250 people dead, along with widespread destruction of residential homes and churches, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based war monitor.

The violence also led to hundreds of Syrian Druze attempting to cross the border into Israel to escape the violence. 

Those fleeing were intercepted by the IDF, but the chaos also saw 1,000 Israeli Druze enter Syria, with the Jewish state working to return all citizens to their respective countries. 

The IDF said the situation would not stand, vowing to protect the Syrian Druze from Damascus and reinforce their army along the occupied Golan Heights.  

“In accordance with directives from the political echelon, the IDF is striking in the area and remains prepared for various scenarios,” the military said.

“Air force aircraft have attacked over the past 24 hours — and continue to strike — tanks, rocket launchers, combat equipment and pickups armed with heavy machine guns making their way to the Sweida area of southern Syria,” the IDF added. 

Wednesday’s strikes in Damascus specifically hit the entrance to the new government’s military headquarters and another target near the presidential palace, according to the IDF. 

The military action comes after Sheik Mowafaq Tarif, the spiritual leader of Israeli Druze, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz to discuss the violence in Sweida.  

Netanyahu and Katz told the IDF to “immediately strike regime forces and weaponry that were brought into the Sweida area of Syria’s Jabal al-Druze [Druze Mountain] region for regime activity against the Druze,” the military said. 

“Israel is committed to preventing harm to the Druze in Syria due to the deep fraternal alliance with our Druze citizens in Israel, as well as their familial and historical ties to the Druze in Syria,” Netanyahu’s office added in a statement. 

The Jewish state is also wary of the Syrian regime’s extremist roots, as President Ahmad al-Sharaa was formerly the head of the HTS terror group and linked to al Qaeda. 

Following the lightning revolution that ousted al-Assad, Sharaa vowed to shed his past and form an open, multicultural government to revive his war-torn nation.  

His government has blamed the fighting in Sweida on outlawed gangs while reiterating that the army is needed in the region to bring stability and stop the bloodshed. 

Israel and Syria had been in talks to rebuild their relations under the new regime, with President Trump’s envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, touting that permanent peace would be possible back in May. 

Barrack has now condemned the violence in Sweida, calling for the perpetrators of the attacks against the Druze “to be held accountable.”

With Post wires