Host: Ezgi Toper
Guests: Nour Qormosh, Fatih Semsettin Isik

Producer: Ezgi Toper
Craft Editor: Nasrullah Yilmaz
Supervising Editor: Burak Bayram
Executive Producer: Nasra Omar Bwana

Transcript

NOUR: Every time Syria's new administration gets real close to achieving civil peace, gets real close to bringing all of the Syrian community fabrics together, Israel comes in and makes everything complicated.

FATIH: The real risk is that southern Syria turns into another Gaza now or South Lebanon or West Bank, a theatre for proxy fights for Israel.

EZGI: You are listening to “In the Newsroom”, a TRT Global Podcasts production. My name is Ezgi Toper and in this show I take you around our newsroom as I chat with my colleagues and go beyond the headlines. 

While Israel’s war in Gaza continues to rage, Tel Aviv seems to have set its eyes on a new target: Syria. This week, Israel launched a series of intense air strikes on the Syrian capital Damascus, while also hitting government sites in the south. The air strikes blew up part of Syria's defence ministry, hit near the presidential palace, and killed and wounded several people. 

To understand why Israel is attacking Syria, I speak to Syrian journalist Nour Qormosh, our correspondent who is currently on the ground in Syria, and here in the studio, we have Fatih Semsettin Isik, a senior news producer at TRT World. He has been studying and conducting research on Israeli foreign policy for more than 12 years. 

Together, Nour and Fatih give us the two vantage points we need: what’s happening now, and why it’s happening at all. Let’s begin. 

Since the ouster of Bashar al-Assad's regime in December, 2024, Israel has repeatedly struck Syria. But what makes this week’s attacks different? Nour, paint the picture for us.

NOUR: Well, what makes this attack really unique and significant is that they have targeted for the first time the Ministry of Defence HQ with three different missiles, resulting in massive damage and also we've been hearing from reports that they have also targeted several Syrian army personnel such as the leader of the artillery division and the 40th battalion, the leader of the elite forces in Daraa, and several army unknown personnels. 

They have also targeted the heart of Damascus, the Umayyad Square, which has its historic and important significance not only to the Syrian state but also to Syria's historic heritage.

EZGI: The Israeli attacks are blatant violations of the sovereignty of Syria, but Israel claims the purpose of these strikes is to protect a minority community in the south called “the Druze”. 

You see, in the days leading up to Israeli air strikes, this small community was clashing with tribes in a southern Syrian city called Sweida. In response, the Syrian military sent troops into the area to stop the violence. But fighting only intensified and it is reported that more than 250 people were killed. 

But who exactly are the Druze at the heart of these clashes and what kick-started tensions with them and local tribes in the first place?

NOUR: The Druze are among one of the Muslim sects in Syria. They are among different groups of Islam, such as Sunnis and Shias, and the Bedouins are among the tribes of different parts of the countries.

Now, what led to these escalations from what we've come to understand from our sources on the ground and from different reports that it all began with mutual kidnapping incidents between the Bedouins and the Druze. Some of the Druze kidnapped some of the Bedouins and vice versa, and that led to the escalations that we have seen in the past days.

Now, what led to these kidnappings is the mutual roadblocks from Bedouins and from the Druze as they live somehow close to each other. 

EZGI: But the Druze are not united in their stance against the Bedouins. In fact, they have continuous infighting between different spiritual leaders.

A key figure in the midst of this is Hikmat al-Hijri, one of the prominent Druze spiritual leaders in Sweida. Hikmat al-Hijri has close ties with Israel and wants the Druze to establish autonomy in Syria. But other Druze leaders, such as Laith al-Balous, disagree with his vision.

NOUR: Now, the two sides have been in continuous rivalry ever since the rule of the Assad Assad regime because Hikmat al-Hijri greatly supported Assad, greatly supported the spread of Assad's forces in Sweida, and also he was basically Assad's man in Sweida.

They said al-Balous was against Assad's regime and he supported its ousting and he also was supportive to the Syrian new government and he was one of these spiritual leaders who greatly contributed in enforcing the first ceasefire that took place 24 hours after the escalations. 

Now, what al-Balous is saying is that he refuses any attempts from Israeli forces to interfere in Syria. He clearly stated that we don't need protection from Israel. There's nothing to be protected from, and the new Syrian government has pledged to protect not only the Druze community but also all Syrians alike.

EZGI: So, why is Israel so invested in this minority population in the first place? What’s in it for them?

The key word is Muwaffaq Tarif. He is the prominent Druze spiritual leader in Israel, and he is greatly supportive to Netanyahu's government and Netanyahu's cabinet and also a lot of the Druze community are participating in and serving in the Israeli army. So any move from Netanyahu to upset Muwaffaq Tarif will have its effects on Netanyahu's role. The government might actually lose the support of Muwaffaq Tarif, and that's actually what pushed Israel to interfere in Syria and strike multiple locations of the Syrian military.

EZGI: A ceasefire was agreed upon between the Druze and local tribes in Sweida – according to the Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa. In a recent speech, he even referred to the Druze as “brothers and sisters”.

SYRIAN PRESIDENT AHMED AL-SHARA: Today as we face this challenge, we find ourselves in the heart of a battle aimed at preserving the unity of our nation. The Israeli entity known for its repeated attempts to destabilise us and sow division, once again seeks to  turn our land into a battlefield of chaos and to dismantle the fabric of our people. We have therefore decided to entrust certain local fractions and the Druze spiritual leadership with the responsibility of maintaining security in Sweida. We are committed to holding accountable those who wronged our Druze brothers and sisters, they are under the protection of the state.

EZGI: Following this, the Syrian military pulled back its troops from the area and left security control to the Druze. But have clashes actually halted in Sweida?

NOUR: The ceasefire has been breached several times by the Hikmat al-Hijri armed militias, as it was enforced two times previously, once that was agreed upon with late al-Balous and Yusuf Jarbou. These two are prominent spiritual Druze leaders. And after the ceasefire agreement, the Ministry of Defence Forces immediately withdrew from the city and gave the city to the internal security forces to establish civil police, to establish traffic police, and all of these details.

The Syrian government, the Syrian people have been working on establishing ties between different parts of the Syrian community, and that's what Syria's new administration has been working on since they took over the country. They acknowledged that the past 14 years have had their toll on the Syrian community fabric, and they wanted to bring all Syrians perspectives together. However, there are still groups of the Hikmat al-Hijri group who keep on refusing calls from the Syrian administration, from the Syrian community, to talk, to increase dialogue between the two parties. They keep on refusing as they keep on coordinating with the Israeli forces to achieve their autonomous goal to have their own independent state within a state project.

And what makes everything complicated every time Syria's new administration gets real close to achieving civil peace gets real close to bringing all of the Syrian community fabrics together, Israel comes in and makes everything complicated. So we are still waiting for further updates as we are covering from the heart of Damascus.

EZGI: While Nour’s reporting lays bare the immediate consequences of Israel’s strikes on the ground, it also raises a much larger question: Why now?

To further understand Israel’s long game and why the Druze matter so much to its geopolitical strategy, we turn now to Fatih in the studio. He says these latest attacks mark a deliberate strategic shift.

FATIH: Israel has long history of, you know, engaging with like regional minorities, not necessarily out of like solidarity we can say but for the strategic interests. Like in history we know that, during the civil war in Lebanon they supported Phalangists, which led the massacre in Sabbra and Shatila in 1982, or like we know that, you know, Israel has been an active supporter in the Kurds in northern Iraq. They have been regarded as an ally since the 1940s-1950s, but this has been like a policy that Israel has conducted for years.

Since the uprisings began in Syria in 2011, Israel has been side of the conflict. In cooperation with Russia, they targeted Iranian convoys or Hezbollah convoys in Syria, but this time you see Israel wants to actually expand its influence by not just becoming a side of what's happening in Syria but also being an actor directly stepping on the ground. So, it seems to me like it's a strategic shift for Israeli foreign policy in Syria and also strategic interests, but now also we can see that it poses a threat to regional stability.

EZGI: Israeli air strikes come at a time when the US and Europe have lifted sanctions on Syria, and Damascus is finally trying to resume trade and finance with other countries after years of seclusion… Will these attacks impact this normalisation process?

FATIH: I would say we should look at one of the first statements of Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar. Whenever he was appointed, he made a statement around the revolution in Syria. He was saying that a federal Syria is the best option for them. A federal Syria means the Druze population and the Kurdish population in the north should gain some sort of autonomy or independence from the Syrian authority. 

So, this I think summarises how Israel is actually looking at Syria right now. By investing in Druze, not just Druze, but even the armed factions in northern Syria, which is now on the way of normalisation with Syrian government. 

By investing in these minority groups, Israel is aiming to fragment Syria, which is on the way of protecting its territorial integrity.

FATIH: A stable Syria who could be relieved by the sanctions removed and who could complete giving the rights of the minority groups as they deserve and unifying its population around Syrian identity. This such Syria would be not eligible for Israel to maintain its interests and occupational aims because we know that Israel has been an occupying power in the Golan Heights since like 1967, the Arab-Israeli war.

EZGI: Fatih brings up the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau in southwestern Syria that Israel illegally annexed in 1967. The Druze community are the majority Syrian population in this area. 

FATIH: Despite this, Israel has shown little hesitation in launching military strikes in or near the Druze-populated areas, especially when targeting what it claims are Hezbollah or Iranian-linked forces in the past.

As we have seen right after the revolution, Israel has established outposts in the occupied area and it wants to maintain maybe by directing setting like stepping on the ground or with a buffer zone led by the Druze. Time will tell but Israel definitely wants a fragmented Syria rather than a unified and territorially integrated Syria.

EZGI: What has the international reaction been to the escalation?

FATIH: So far the international reaction has been very critical of Israel. I would say like starting from of course Ankara, which has been very active since the revolution in Syria. Of course, not just Türkiye but even some Arab countries, who were reportedly on the way of normalising relations with Israel, they even criticised what Israel has done to the Syrian capital.

Even I would say to the extent that I wouldn't see a similar reaction to what happened in Gaza. They criticised Israel's attack in Damascus because we can imagine that the EU has just removed the sanctions on the Syrian administration, which shows the trust and confidence the EU has been relying on the new Syrian administration.

EZGI: Because the US and Europe are currently so invested in building up this new Syria, they're lifting sanctions, they're having these conversations. Therefore, their response to Israel's attacks in Syria was arguably harsher than their responses to Israel's attacks in Gaza that we've seen?

FATIH: Yeah, you understood correctly because like there's an obvious reason: we're talking about the conflict which has endured for 14 years and ended up with a revolution, but of course with a huge price: millions of people have been killed and some other millions have been dispersed and spread over the world. Europe and the EU of course has been deeply affected with this.

What happens in Gaza does not directly influence EU’s policy, EU’s political spectrum or EU’s politicians because what happened in Syria actually led to the question of refugee issue, but in Gaza, the EU is not taking care of the question like it did in Syria because basically what happens in Gaza unfortunately stays in Gaza.

EZGI: This is obviously a developing story, but what can we expect moving forward? Is Israel going to continue to deepen its involvement in Syria? And if it is, what does that mean for Syria's stability?

FATIH: Israel seems prepared to stay involved, possibly even escalating the tensions there. You see public threats against figures like Ahmed al-Sharaa, suggests a move that is not just a conventional warfare but rather a targeted assassination or targeted strikes might take place like what we saw in Iran regarding Ismail Haniyeh, former political bureau chief of Hamas, or what happened in Lebanon, regarding Hezbollah's top echelon. So, not just strikes on infrastructure but selective targeting might be the option for Israel after this strike.

There's also increasing activity regarding the Israeli land forces as we have seen the background of the current chief of staff of of Israeli army Rav Aluf Eyal Zamir, who's coming from an armoured corps background and a reformer of like Israeli army trying to recalibrate the importers of land forces inside the Israeli army rather than just like depending on air forces.

So, that doesn't necessarily mean a grand invasion is imminent, unlike, of course, apart from what happened in Golan Heights, but it shows Israel is actually thinking beyond air power.

But the real risk is that southern Syria turns into another Gaza now or like South Lebanon or like West Bank, a theatre for proxy fights for Israel, cross border raids like we see Israeli Druze just like crossed the border in Syria and acted on the behalf of Israeli operations and if that happens, the fragile calm in the region and in Syria could quickly unravel.

EZGI: Thank you so much for joining us.

FATIH: I thank you, Ezgi.

EZGI: As we’ve heard today, Israel’s recent strikes on Syria aren’t likely just about protecting one community or responding to tribal clashes, they are part of a broader play to reshape Syria’s future. 

By backing fragmentation, Tel Aviv ensures a weaker, divided neighbour: one less able to reclaim occupied territory like the Golan Heights or fully re-enter the regional fold. But that strategy comes with risks. Nour’s reporting shows us how easily fragile ceasefires can fall apart, and Fatih warns of a southern Syria that could spiral into the next Gaza or South Lebanon.

With sanctions lifting and diplomatic doors just starting to open for Damascus, the stakes are high. Whether Syria can hold together or whether outside powers will pull it further apart is a question that will shape the region for years to come.

Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, I’m Ezgi Toper, and this was “In the Newsroom”.