FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney speaks to Nanar Hawach, senior analyst for Syria at the International Crisis Group, about the sectarian violence in Syria and the Israeli airstrikes on Damascus. He says that 'what Israel is doing is a clear signal to Syrian authorities against consolidating power in the south' and is a message to Syrian minority groups that 'their only leverage is the weapons they have'.
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00:04The attacks mark a significant escalation against the Syrian interim government
00:08as days of clashes threaten to unravel the country's post-war political transition.
00:13Israel has tonight launched further airstrikes on Damascus,
00:17hours after government officials and Druze leaders announced a renewed truce following days of clashes.
00:23War monitors say more than 300 people have been killed.
00:26Israel is presenting itself as a defender of the Druze,
00:30but some analysts say that's a pretext for pursuing its own goal
00:34of keeping Syrian government forces from their shared border, as Eliza Herbert explains.
00:41Dozens of Israeli Druze have breached the border into Syria,
00:46crossing the demarcation line in the Israeli annexed Golan Heights.
00:49In the chaos, violence broke out, fires started,
00:53and the IDF deployed tear gas towards the crowds.
00:57Israeli Druze community leaders had called on them to pressure Israeli forces
01:01to intervene in the deadly sectarian clashes in Syria's southern city of Sueda.
01:07Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told them to go home and let the IDF do its job.
01:13My fellow Israeli Druze citizens, the situation in Sueda, the situation in southern Syria, is very serious.
01:23The IDF is operating, the air force is operating, other forces are operating.
01:28We are working to save the Druze community and to eliminate the terrorist threats.
01:33And now I have one request of you.
01:35You are citizens of Israel.
01:37Do not cross the border.
01:38On Wednesday, the Israeli army demonstrated its heavy hand.
01:43It bombed the Syrian regime's military headquarters and said it struck a target near the presidential palace in Damascus.
01:52It also released footage claiming to show strikes on Syrian tanks, rocket launchers and pickup trucks.
01:57Israel's defence minister suggested they may just be getting started.
02:02The warnings in Damascus have ended.
02:05Now painful blows will come.
02:07The IDF will continue to operate forcefully in Sueda to destroy the forces that attacked the Druze until their complete withdrawal.
02:14Druze are a small religious minority estimated to have more than one million people in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel,
02:23where there is a concentration of some 150,000, with many serving in the Israeli army.
02:29However, the IDF operations in Syria also align with its broader goals of securing its northern border
02:35and demilitarising the area south of Damascus.
02:39Well, for more, we're joined now by Nanar Hawat, Senior Analyst for Syria at the International Crisis Group.
02:47Nanar, thanks so much for being with us on the programme.
02:50We heard a short time ago the Syrian army saying that it had begun withdrawing its forces from Sueda.
02:57Just talk to us a little bit about, you know, what has been happening there,
03:01how exactly we have gotten to this point,
03:04and just remind us why the Druze community has been resisting government efforts to take control of that area.
03:13Thank you for having me.
03:15I think one way to describe what was happening is a local spark that led to a regional fire.
03:24Basically, there was a lawful intercommunal dispute that is relatively likely to happen in an environment like post-Assad Syria,
03:37where there's a lot of grievances and a very destroyed country.
03:41And this intercommunal dispute was, to a certain extent, exploited by Damascus to try to assort control in the southern area of Sueda.
03:56The government's intervention was seen as a power grab by the Druze in Syria, not really as a peacekeeping mission.
04:06This approach backfired on the government.
04:09It escalated the conflict and drawing, which drew Israeli airstrikes.
04:16Now, speaking of Israel, Israel didn't hold back on season the opportunity that was presented by Damascus's power grab attempt in the south.
04:28Publicly, Israel framed what was happening or framed its actions as protecting the Druze community.
04:39But strategically, and in reality, it reflects Israel's aims at keeping Syria fragmented and weak, especially in the south.
04:49What Israel is doing the last couple of days, it's a clear signal to Damascus against consolidating power in the south.
05:01I would add that the government inadvertently pushed a Syrian community closer to Israel.
05:11And this brings me to your second question.
05:13When the new authorities to control, they basically, they over relied and they have been over relying on the use of force, on the use of coercion, which kind of alienated different communities that don't see themselves aligned with the new authorities.
05:35The Druze are including these communities and the over-reliance on the use of force actually played in the hands of any war mongering actor or any actor that wants to antagonize the Syrian state.
05:51And it undermined any actor that wants to use the kind of the peace building approach or want to take the peace building approach.
06:02So the government's, as I said, like power grab attempts played in the hands of the factions of the Blacks, the players within the Druze community that want to take the more armed way against the state.
06:19And it increased tremendously the feeling of existential threat among the Druze, creating, like increasing the popularity of these groups that want to, that are really against the state and undermining the groups that want to open up relations with the state and want to unify the country.
06:44And how then has this Israeli intervention complicated the situation?
06:49Do these strikes risk spilling over into another wider regional conflict?
06:54It's difficult seeing these strikes expanding to different regional conflicts and drawing in different nations.
07:07different nations.
07:08But I would say the, the, the, the, the mere intervention of Israel's is, uh, uh, uh, means that, or like what the change, uh, in the dynamics that are happening in the South, unfortunately means that we're going to be seeing more, not less, uh, Israeli intervention.
07:27Uh, Israel, uh, right.
07:28Israel, uh, right now is going to play more of an active role in the South.
07:33And this role is not going to be to, to push for a unified Syria, unfortunately.
07:38Uh, it also means that, uh, that the escalation derailed the, the, the, the ongoing talks between, between Syria and Israel, that would have been extremely important for, uh, stabilizing, uh, the country.
07:54So will this conflict, uh, kind of draw more actors?
07:58I highly doubt, uh, it will, especially there's a, uh, there's heavy us mediation going on right now to deescalate the situation, but will what happened today?
08:11Will it have a negative effects or snowballing effects or domino effects on, on different dynamics in Syria?
08:19I would, uh, unfortunately I would say it will.
08:22It will, it will have, uh, um, it's sending in a message that to different actors, including the, uh, Syrian democratic forces, uh, the, the Kurdish led Syrian democratic forces that your only way of, of, of, uh, leverage is the arms that you have.
08:42Uh, and that's, that's problematic, especially since the biggest problem right now, one of the biggest issues in a highly popular, problematic country is the, is the lack of trust.
08:53And we heard earlier from our correspondent in Jerusalem talking about how people in Israel today, when they see these hundreds of people of Druze coming in, trying to get across the border into Israel, that that's reminding them of the Hamas attacks of October 7th.
09:09What kind of a threat does Syria actually pose to the Israeli, Israeli military?
09:14And are these strikes not making it more likely that Israel is going to have, you know, a volatile state as its neighbor, a more volatile state?
09:24Definitely spot on, really.
09:28Uh, it's, it's not in, we don't see that it's in Israel's best interest to, to have a weak and fragmented state, uh, a more kind of capable, uh, unified state is, uh, is, uh, beneficial for Israeli's, uh, security.
09:45It means you have a, uh, uh, a more secure state where there is less space for radicalism.
09:50Uh, that's, uh, that's very true.
09:54Um, so will we see more, uh, more insecurity in the South?
10:01We could.
10:02Um, will we see more, uh, or some movements, uh, in the South that could try to, uh, uh, come at, at, at, at Israel?
10:14To a smaller extent, because there's not really capable, uh, movements.
10:19Maybe.
10:20I would say the best thing, uh, for the region is to have, um, a unified Syria, to have a stable Syria, to have, uh, uh, uh, a country, a state, a government that has a capable, uh, army, uh, a functional security.
10:39And it's also very beneficial, including for, for the Syrian government to have, uh, a representative, uh, uh, uh, entities, especially within the army and the security sector, which, you know, makes this, uh, or undermines or lower, uh, this level, lowers this level of fragmentation within, uh, uh, within the country.
11:01And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's very important.
11:05So Syria doesn't go into different cycles of violence over and over and over again.
11:10I mean, the last cycle of violence was several months ago.
11:14It wasn't too long ago.
11:15So when is the next cycle of violence?
11:18And I think there's going to be a lot of new cycles of violence if there's no significant, uh, change in Syria, unfortunately.
11:27Yeah.
11:28Because you point out that the recent clashes that we've seen in Syria, they derailed talks that had been taking place with Israel.
11:34So what kind of longer term implications might we see here?
11:37When it comes to the relation, uh, the relations between, uh, the Syrian state and Israel, I would say, uh, it got negatively, uh, uh, uh, affected.
11:53Now the question remains, will Israel follow a different approach than normalizing with the Syrian government, an approach that relies on building something, uh, building a, a semi-autonomous, uh, force in Syria.
12:06And, and pushing more into, uh, fragmentation.
12:10Will it feed the, will it feed or try to, to play on these existential fears that different, uh, communities have?
12:18That's going to be a problem if, if Israel decides to do that.
12:22Or will Israel decides to go, uh, on, on a different path?
12:26And the question, again, we can't take the responsibility from the government.
12:29That is the main internal actor in Syria.
12:32Will the Syrian government continue to rely on, on the, uh, the use of coercive, uh, uh, the use of force only as a method?
12:42Will it continue to centralize or over-centralize governance to, to be, uh, especially within the security to be only representing one segment of the Syrian population?
12:54That's going to lead to different issues.
12:56That's going to create a fertile ground for any, um, any warmongering actor or any actor that wants to undermine the Syrian state to, to try to undermine the Syrian state.
13:10This applies in all the, I would say in most of the peripheries, uh, you have from Sweda to North East, to the coast.
13:18So the Syrian government needs to, uh, re-examine its approach.
13:24Israel needs to also re-examine its approach and focus on, on, on, uh, on, uh, on helping build a more unified and, uh, uh, stable country because it's beneficial for, for its own security and the security of the region as well.
13:42Because I'm going to end by saying that ISIS thrives on insecurity and, uh, power vacuums.
13:50Nana, thanks so much for being with us.
13:52That is Nana Hawak, senior analyst for Syria at the International Crisis Group.
