Middle East Press On: West Bank Jews Palestinians al Shara’a: New Age Islam's Selection, 24 July 2025
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
24 July 2025
West Bank on the Brink: Israel’s Annexation Playbook and the Looming Explosion
Israel Can't Afford To Ignore The PR Front Of The Gaza War
On the brink of chaos: Clashes in Syria threaten to spill over
The Birth Of An Army Of Healers: Jews, Palestinians Offering Support During War
Without Strategic Messaging, Israel Loses Global Support, And Future Growth
Palestine and Syria: Who has the Most of Ahmad al Shara’a?
The Disintegration of Syria’s Government and Israel’s Insidious Plot
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West Bank on the Brink: Israel’s Annexation Playbook and the Looming Explosion
By Ramzy Baroud
July 24, 2025
Israel is meticulously following a textbook model of instigating unrest in the occupied West Bank. The latest such provocations consisted of stripping the Palestinian-run Hebron (Al-Khalil) municipality of its administrative powers over the venerable Ibrahimi Mosque. Worse, according to Israel Hayom, it granted these powers to the religious council of the Kiryat Arba Jewish settlement, an extremist settler body.
Though all Jewish settlers in occupied Palestine can be qualified as extremists, the approximately 7,500 inhabitants of Kiryat Arba represent a more virulent category. This settlement, established in 1972, serves as a strategic foothold to justify subjecting Hebron to stricter military control than virtually any other part of the West Bank.
Kiryat Arba is infamously linked to Baruch Goldstein, the US-Israeli settler who, in February 1994, unleashed a horrific attack. He opened fire at Muslim worshipers kneeling for dawn prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque, mercilessly killing 29. This bloodbath was swiftly followed by another, where the Israeli army brutally cracked down on Palestinian protesters in Hebron and across the West Bank, murdering an additional 25 Palestinians.
Yet, the Israeli Shamgar Commission, tasked with investigating the massacre, resolved in 1994 that the Palestinian mosque, a site of profound religious significance, was to be grotesquely divided: 63% allocated to Jewish worshipers and a mere 37% to Palestinian Muslims.
Since that calamitous decision, oppressive restrictions have been systematically imposed. These include pervasive surveillance and, at times, unjustifiable, extended closures of the site, solely for exclusive settler use.
The latest decision, described by Israel Hayom as “historic and unprecedented,” is profoundly dangerous. It places the fate of this historic Palestinian mosque directly into the hands of those fanatically keen on acquiring the holy site in its entirety.
But the Ibrahimi Mosque is merely a microcosm of something far more sinister underway across the West Bank. Israel has exploited its war in Gaza to dramatically escalate its violence, carry out mass arrests, confiscate vast tracts of land, systematically destroy Palestinian farms and orchards, and aggressively expand illegal settlements.
Though the West Bank, previously largely subdued by joint Israeli military pressures and Palestinian Authority crackdowns, was not a direct party to the October 7, 2023, assault nor the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, it has inexplicably become a major focus for Israeli military measures.
In the first year of the war, over 10,400 Palestinians were detained in Israeli army crackdowns, with thousands held without charge. Furthermore, hundreds of Palestinians have been forcibly ethnically cleansed, largely from the northern West Bank, where entire refugee camps and towns have been systematically destroyed in protracted Israeli military campaigns.
Israel’s overarching aim remains the strangulation of the West Bank. This is achieved by severing communities using ubiquitous military checkpoints, imposing total closures of vast regions, and the cruel suspension of work permits for Palestinian laborers, who are almost entirely dependent on the Israeli work market for survival.
This insidious plan also explicitly targeted all Palestinian holy sites, including the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem and the Ibrahimi Mosque. Even when these shrines were nominally accessible, age restrictions and suffocating military checkpoints make it difficult, at times utterly impossible, for Palestinians to worship there.
In August 2024, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that his relentless violent campaign against the West Bank was part of confronting the “broader Iran terror axis.” Practically, this statement served as a green light for the Israeli army to treat the West Bank as an extension of the ongoing Israeli genocide on Gaza. By mid-July 2025, over 900 Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli army in the West Bank, while at least 15 were murdered by settlers.
As Palestinians were pushed further against the wall, with no centralized strategy by their leadership to meaningfully resist, Israel exponentially increased its illegal settlement constructions and the brazen legalization of numerous outposts, many built illegally even by Israeli government standards.
Israel’s actions in the West Bank were not a sudden deviation but consistent with a long-standing, insidious scheme. This includes a plan solidified by the Israeli Knesset in 2020 that allowed Israel to officially annex the West Bank. Israel’s ultimate goal has always been to confine the majority of Palestinians into Bantustan-like enclaves, while asserting full control over the vast majority of the region.
In August 2023, extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir articulated this sinister vision: “My right, the right of my wife and my children to move around Judea and Samaria (the occupied West Bank) is more important than freedom of movement for the Arabs.”
More coercive measures swiftly followed, including Knesset laws to significantly curtail UNRWA operations, and further legislation to entrench de facto annexation. Last May, Smotrich audaciously announced 22 more settlements. On July 2, 14 Israeli ministers made a public call on Netanyahu to immediately annex the West Bank.
In fact, every action Israel has undertaken, especially since the commencement of its devastating genocide in Gaza, has been carefully calculated to culminate in the irreversible annexation of the West Bank – a process that would inevitably be followed by declaring native inhabitants persona non grata in their own homeland.
This level of systemic pressure and oppression will ultimately lead to a popular explosion. Though suppressed by the brutality of the Israeli army, the terror of armed settlers, and the suppressive actions of the Palestinian Authority, the breaking point is fast approaching.
Those in the West who preach hollow calls for calm and de-escalation must understand the region is hurtling towards the brink. Neither diplomatic platitudes nor sterile press releases will suffice to avert the catastrophe. They are advised to act decisively against Israel’s destructive policies, and they must act immediately.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/west-bank-on-the-brink-israels-annexation-playbook-and-the-looming-explosion/
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Israel Can't Afford To Ignore The PR Front Of The Gaza War
By Joel Leyden
JULY 24, 2025
As an IDF spokesperson at the centre of a tense negotiation during the 2002 siege at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity – when Palestinian terrorists took refuge in one of Christianity’s holiest sites – I’ve seen first-hand the painful complexity of war when religion, civilians, and global perception collide.
Now, more than two decades later, I am disheartened to witness history repeat itself, this time in Gaza, where a church has again become part of a deadly theater.
Reports that the Israel Defense Forces mistakenly targeted the Holy Family Church in Gaza sparked outrage. A sacred site was damaged and lives were lost. Global headlines ran with the familiar narrative: Israel fires on a church. And yet, missing from many of those stories was the other uncomfortable truth: Hamas, as it has done for years, was using that location for cover.
Israel is losing in the headlines
The IDF faces an enemy that thrives on martyrdom and headlines. Hamas embeds its fighters and weapons inside schools, hospitals, and yes, churches – not simply as military strategy, but as media strategy.
Civilian deaths become global ammunition. In this asymmetric war, Hamas doesn’t just hide behind women and children, whom they use as human shields. It builds its battlefield in places designed to provoke maximum moral and political backlash.
Israel cannot afford to ignore this dimension of the conflict any longer. Military operations may succeed on the ground, but if Israel continues to fail in the information war, every battlefield win will be eclipsed by a massive PR loss.
The Israeli government must urgently recognize what Hamas, Iran, and Qatar have already mastered: global narrative is a front line.
Israel goes for battlefield wins that are PR losses
Today, there is not a single senior IDF officer with seasoned crisis communications or international PR agency experience embedded in real-time operations. While there are highly capable professionals in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, they are outmatched by a propaganda machine that is larger, faster, emotionally charged, and unburdened by facts.
After the atrocities of October 7, when Hamas massacred over 1,200 civilians and abducted hundreds, the world briefly remembered what Israel is up against. But as images of damaged churches and chaotic aid distributions take center stage, global memory is short – and sympathy even shorter.
The result? A resurgence of anti-Israel sentiment, and with it, a spike in antisemitism from London and Paris to Los Angeles and Toronto.
Let’s be clear: mistakes in war are tragic. They deserve investigation, accountability, and transparency. But mistakes in messaging are equally deadly in a conflict where international legitimacy is under constant siege.
If Israel fails to explain in real time why and how these tragic events occur; if it fails to document Hamas’s exploitation of sacred and civilian spaces, it will continue to lose support abroad. And when Israel loses support, Jews around the world face the consequences.
The time to act was yesterday. The IDF must integrate experienced crisis communications professionals; people who understand not just how to manage a news cycle, but how to shape it. Israel must respond to tragedy not just with remorse, but with facts, context, and strategic clarity. They need to respond not just from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem but with staff in London and New York who know wire service editors.
I say this not as an international communications strategist but as someone who once helped prevent bloodshed in a church with one, on-site news conference. I know the cost of hesitation and the cost of silence.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-861954
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On The Brink Of Chaos: Clashes In Syria Threaten To Spill Over
By Ronen Itsik
JULY 24, 2025
The takeover of Syria by Ahmed al-Sharaa, former leader of Jabhat al-Nusra and now head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has dramatically altered the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. Once regarded as a marginal jihadist, Sharaa has advanced to a central position in post-Assad Syria, consolidating political and military control through the Syrian Salvation Government. This unexpected shift has caused mounting concern across the region, particularly due to the fragile security situation in southern Syria and the danger of violence spilling beyond the country’s borders.
One of the most troubling aspects of Sharaa’s rise is the intensification of tensions with the Druze community in Syria. The Druze, most of whom reside in the Sweida province of southern Syria, maintained relative neutrality and autonomy throughout the civil war. However, the fall of president Bashar al-Assad and the ascendancy of Sharaa’s government have disrupted these previous balances.
In recent weeks, and especially now, there have been severe clashes between Druze militias and armed Bedouin groups, as well as fighters associated with HTS. These confrontations are often inflamed by sectarian provocations and retaliations, reportedly supported by government elements. Reports from the region about targeted killings of Druze leaders and widespread civilian casualties have heightened fears of potential ethnic cleansing or mass displacement.
How it affects Israel
In all matters concerning Israel, the connection with the Druze community serves as a force multiplier in national security. The Druze community has bound its fate with the Jewish state in ties of blood and loyalty whose strength cannot be overstated. Any harm to the Druze community, including in countries that share a border with Israel, constitutes a blow to the national security of the State of Israel. Therefore, it is absolutely clear that Israel cannot remain indifferent to the events unfolding against the Druze in Syria.
The situation, as it appears now, and especially the violence by the new Syrian regime or other ethnic groups, will require Israel to intervene militarily and diplomatically, whichever avenue yields the necessary results.
While Assad's ousting removes a longtime foe deeply allied with Iran, it brings to power a Sunni Islamist regime that does not adhere to established bilateral rules. With growing concern over the spread of Sunni jihadism and concentrations of radical fighters near the northern border, Israel has increased its military presence in the Golan Heights, carried out targeted strikes against perceived threats, and maintained open communication channels with Druze leaders on both sides of the border.
Additionally, the Israeli government is working to strengthen deterrence, clarify red lines, and prevent the spread of violence into Israeli territory.
On the international policy front, it is important to emphasize that the role of the United States under President Donald Trump is pivotal in establishing new rules of engagement. The Trump administration adopted a realpolitik approach, engaging in dialogue with Sharaa’s regime and setting clear preconditions for any relaxation of sanctions or diplomatic progress.
These conditions included the destruction of chemical weapon stockpiles, actions against international terrorist organizations, removal of foreign operatives from positions of power, cooperation with American security objectives, and resolution of sensitive issues such as the disappearance of American journalist Austin Tice.
Nonetheless, recent events make it evident that Sharaa is not aligned with the direction the US seeks to pursue in the region.
Another strategic element of Trump’s policy is the need to influence Turkish involvement in the troubling developments in Syria. Notably, by lifting economic sanctions, the US has opened the door for Turkish companies to participate in Syrian economic projects. This move offered Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan incentives to deepen his country’s influence in Syrian territories and act as a moderating force against Sharaa’s expansionist ambitions.
This strategy has created a new triangle of interests: Israel as a stabilizing power on the border, Turkey as a player in the rear arena, and Syria under tight international and US supervision for long-term regulation. These arrangements must be translated into practical policies, and not remain as mere colorful meetings in international conference halls.
An unstable view for the future
Looking forward, a new and complicated reality emerges: A Sunni Islamist regime in Syria, minority communities under attack, and unstable frontiers on the borders of key states. Israel will need to persist in safeguarding its northern border and maintain ties to the Syrian minority. Current conditions are escalating, and diplomacy has yet to deliver the required results. Trump holds a significant role in shaping boundaries within this new policy framework and in preventing the region from slipping into uncontrolled jihadist chaos.
The fate of Syria and the nature of regional stability depend on whether the main actors –Israel, the US, Turkey, and other allies – can establish strict rules of engagement, enforce normative mechanisms, and preserve the fragile status quo achieved after years of protracted conflict.
The expansion of the jihadist phenomenon without the necessary restraint already poses a threat not only to Syria; it is a development whose spillover into Jordan and Lebanon could be immediate, potentially upending the entire regional order, with an emphasis on the danger that the entire Middle East could sink into an uncontrollable jihadist crisis.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-861986
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The Birth Of An Army Of Healers: Jews, Palestinians Offering Support During War
By Nitsan Joy Gordon
JULY 24, 2025
On the evening of October 8, as the scale of the horror became clear, our Arab Palestinian and Jewish Playback Theater group was scheduled to meet. One by one, participants canceled. My Palestinian co-leader said, “Let’s at least meet on Zoom. It’s a terrible time, but we can still be together.” So, we did. And for a brief moment, it brought comfort.
However, that was the last time our group met together – Arab and Jewish – for four months.
The pain and trauma on both sides was overwhelming. On the Jewish side, there was a sense of rupture, rage, and the terrifying realization that even in our own land, we were not safe. For some, it reopened the wound of our long history: pogroms, persecution, and the Holocaust.
On the Palestinian side, there was shock, fear, and then grief and fury – as the bombing of Gaza intensified, and the death toll of civilians, women, and children climbed.
For many Palestinians, this violence echoed a long and painful story – one that stretches back through decades of occupation, dispossession, and the ongoing trauma of the Nakba.
It became too painful to sit in one space together.
A reactivation of intergenerational trauma
I remember a Jewish woman, a lifelong peace activist who had spent years driving sick Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to Israeli hospitals. Just a week after October 7, she came to a workshop seething with rage.
Gripping a padded bat, she struck a pillow again and again, screaming: “I want to kill you. I want to kill all of you.” Then she collapsed in tears, finally able to touch the pain beneath the rage – held in the arms of fellow Jewish participants who wept with her.
It wasn’t hatred. It was grief. It was betrayal. And it was unbearable.
At another workshop in California, a young Jewish mother described hiding knives around her house and mapping out an escape route, afraid Hamas could come for her family, even across an ocean.
This wasn't just trauma from one terrible day. It was a reactivation of legacy burdens – carried in Jewish and Palestinian bodies for generations. Pain that has not been transformed will be transmitted. And unprocessed emotions can easily drive harmful actions – on the streets, in policy, and in war.
My Palestinian friends were also in shock – some afraid of being targeted, others drowning in despair as images from Gaza reached their phones. All of us were unraveling.
Always, in the background, was the unbearable knowledge that hostages were still being held in Gaza. Their faces haunted every conversation, every gathering. Their absence sharpened the pain and deepened the urgency.
Healing during a time of loss
What does it mean to try to heal in a time of devastating loss? How do we carry the pain of our own community while staying open to the suffering of others? How do we hold onto our humanity when everything around us urges us to harden, to hate, or to turn away?
I realized then that we didn’t just need a few healing circles. We needed hundreds. We needed trained facilitators who could sit with people in their pain, honor their rage, and gently guide it toward something life-giving.
This was the beginning of the Army of Healers, a growing network of Arab Palestinian and Jewish facilitators trained in trauma-informed methods who could respond to this moment of collective breakdown.
When I shared this urgent need at the October 2023 IFS Conference in Denver, the response was immediate. More than 80 IFS-trained therapists and practitioners from different parts of the world stepped forward.
For the past year and a half, they have been offering free one-on-one support to both Israelis and Palestinians, holding space for pain, trauma, and healing across the divides.
By January 2024, something shifted. Beneath the rage and fear, we began to hear a quieter voice – a longing to reconnect. A desire to feel together, not apart. Since then, we’ve launched 22 healing groups, supporting nearly 400 Arab Palestinian and Jewish participants through spaces of grief, rage, resilience, and repair.
This year, we were honored to receive the IIE Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East. We receive this honor on behalf of every person who has chosen connection over division, courage over fear, and healing over hate.
This is what the Army of Healers stands for: interrupting the transmission of trauma. Creating spaces where pain can be felt safely, so it doesn’t become more violence, more hatred, and more war.
In our region, where pain runs deep and the stories of Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians, are woven together – healing is a form of resistance: a quiet and steady uprising of hope, and the beginning of a future we dare to imagine.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-861961
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Without Strategic Messaging, Israel Loses Global Support, And Future Growth
By Aviv Agiv
JULY 23, 2025
In the early days of the war in Gaza, criticism of Israel’s public diplomacy was loud and frequent. Today, that criticism has all but vanished, not because the issue has been resolved, but because it’s become invisible.
Israel is not merely failing at hasbara (public diplomacy); it is largely absent from the conversation altogether. And when Israel goes silent, others speak in its place, filling the vacuum with hostile narratives, out-of-context images, and stories stripped of complexity, humanity, and legitimacy.
The global result is clear: much of the world no longer sees Israel as a nation facing terrorism and holding hostages in Gaza. Instead, it is increasingly portrayed as an indifferent actor operating in a humanitarian crisis, without explanation, without responsibility, and without context.
The consequences are not just reputational; they are strategic. When a country loses control over how it is perceived, it loses its ability to shape international policy, maintain diplomatic alliances, and foster long-term economic partnerships.
The damage builds slowly but decisively — from weakened influence in global institutions to reduced cooperation and investor uncertainty in key markets.
For too long, Israel has left a messaging vacuum. The IDF Spokesperson, once a critical voice in global media, has all but disappeared from international view.
When Israel doesn’t speak, others will
At a time when Israel most needs to communicate — to explain its actions, share verifiable data, outline red lines, and express operational dilemmas alongside moral restraint — its official voice is nearly silent. Foreign press inquiries go unanswered. Global audiences are left with partial, often hostile, interpretations.
Even Israeli media shares responsibility. While the ground reality shifts rapidly and dramatic developments unfold daily, most local outlets focus inward — political spin, emotional discourse — rather than offering coherent, fact-based, globally oriented messaging.
When Israel doesn’t speak, others will. And when others shape the story, Israel is left to deal with the consequences.
Public diplomacy is not a luxury — it is a strategic function. It must move beyond slogans and embrace presence: human, precise, and intelligent. Israel must re-enter the global conversation with clarity.
Speak of the hostages. Of the threats. Of the operational dilemmas and the efforts to minimize civilian harm. Of Hamas’s responsibility — not only for the war, but for the suffering of its own people.
This is not about image. It’s about survival. About consensus. About maintaining the international support that Israel needs, not just to fight today, but to thrive tomorrow.
Because when a nation goes silent, the world writes its story for it.
And that’s exactly what’s happening now.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-861979
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Palestine and Syria: Who has the Most of Ahmad al Shara’a?
By Jeremy Salt
July 24, 2025
Sooner or later, the ‘Arab world’ will have to stand up to Israel or be reduced to its handmaiden. That would seem to be crystal clear by now. Appeasement is only encouragement, a lesson that should have been learned long ago.
No one is safe, and that includes UN agencies based in Gaza, where in Deir al Balah, Israel has just destroyed a WHO warehouse and bombed three times a residential block for staff and their families.
Heavily armed Zionists called ‘soldiers’ entered the building and forced women and children out, pointing them in the direction of Mawasi. Male staff were handcuffed, stripped and interrogated. Two staff and two family members were ‘detained’, three were later released, but one was held.
The UN human rights says 1054 Gazans have been killed since May while trying to get food, 766 near the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) death site, and the rest near UN and other food aid convoys.
As if genocide is not enough, Israel is regularly bombing three countries, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, having attacked Iran as well recently. While already planning its next attack on Iran, Israel is trying to make sure Syria can never recover from the overthrow of its government by creating chaos in the south.
Occupied by the US and the Kurds in the northeast, by Turkiye in the northwest, by Israel in the south, and with an ISIS government in Damascus in all but name, can Syria hope to extricate itself from this spider’s web?
Syria as a unified state now exists in name only. There are various accounts, but how this was finally managed last December remains unclear. Bashar al-Assad did move or was moved from the presidential palace to the Russian air base at Khmeimim, a short time before the takfiris swarmed into Damascus.
They did not conquer Damascus or any of the cities on the way down from Idlib. They walked into them. There was virtually no fighting. The arrangements had already been made ahead of their arrival.
Whether Bashar went voluntarily or was flown to Khmeimim under duress is not known. From the air base, he was reportedly flown to Russia. His account would be of vital importance in understanding what happened last December, but since his departure from Damascus, not a word has been heard of or from him.
The overthrow of his government ends, for the time being, the 100-year war on Syria. It is an enormous victory for Israel, one that could only be surpassed by the breakup of Iran.
Until the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, Syria was Israel’s primary enemy. It was not just its Arab nationalist politics but its resources, which the Zionists had coveted ever since the Paris peace conference in 1919. Essentially, this meant the Golan Heights headwaters of the rivers flowing into Lebanon and Palestine, and onwards through Palestine to what would become Jordan.
Zionist attempts to have the Golan headwaters and its tributaries included in the Palestine mandate were blocked by France, but remained high on Israel’s agenda until it was able to occupy the Golan Heights in 1967.
Relinquishing some of the heights in 1974, since the overthrow of the Syrian government last December, it has taken all of it, plus a broad adjacent swathe of land in southern Syria where it is now building military bases.
For the moment, the fulcrum of Syria’s fate has come to rest on the shoulders of the Druze in Suwayda city, the capital of the Suwayda governorate.
With the Alawis massacred along the coast in March, the turn of the Druze had to come. In the eyes of the killers passed off by the media as ‘Syrian government security’ forces, the Druze, like the Alawis, the Shia and the Ismailis, are heretics who have to be exterminated. The Christians are hardly any less safe.
In and around Suwayda, these criminals committed the most horrific massacres in late July, entirely consistent with the massacres committed by the Islamic State and its ideological clones after the onslaught on Syria in 2011.
The western media presentation of a four-cornered fight between the Druze, Bedu ‘tribal militias’, government ‘security forces’ or its ‘army’ and Israel was a combination of lies. It was basically the ‘security forces’ and paid ‘tribal militias’ against the Druze, with Israel sowing the chaos which it could exploit in the name of defending the Druze as the cover for its own territorial expansion.
Even if there was an initial dispute over land between the Druze and the Bedu, as the media reported, it was not the cause of this full-scale onslaught. The cause, as it was of the attack on the Alawis in March was the determination to punish and bring to heel another heterodox Muslim group hated by the takfiris.
The Syrian national army disintegrated with the fall of the government last December, so there is no ‘national army’ other than in name now. The forces sent to Suwayda to crush the Druze consisted of Bedu tribal recruits and takfiri squads travelling from as far north as Hama in hundreds of pickup trucks and motorbikes and then beginning their onslaught by attacking Druze villages around Suwayda city.
This operation did not just happen. The Druze in Suwayda had already come under takfiri attack in 2018, and the recent assault was obviously planned and carried out under the authority of Syria’s self-chosen interim president, Ahmad al Shara’a (known as Abu Muhammad al Jolani when he represented Al Qaida before heading the Jabhat al Nusra front and then Hay’at Tahrir al Sham).
The so-called ‘government security forces’ were among the most vicious of the killers. One took a video of himself laughing while waving a machete and saying, “We are on our way to deliver aid.”
According to the evidence taken by Druze from their captives, the killers included Uzbeks and Turkestanis. Druze were slaughtered out of hand. The dead were just ‘dogs.’ Women and children were killed, male Druze were murdered in front of their families, often with their families murdered too. Men were lined up and ‘executed’ on the streets, houses looted and burnt down.
The bodies piled up in homes and inside Suwayda’s national hospital. Many were murdered inside the hospital. The charred body of an elderly Druze was found still slumped in the chair outside his house, with killers positioning a portrait of the man he used to be on a chair to mock those who found him. Druze shaykhs were humiliated by having their moustaches cut off.
These crimes were the repetition of the slaughter of Alawis and others by the Islamic State and their ideological clones, Ahrar al Sham, Nur al Din Zinki, Jaish al Islam, and many other terrorist factions at the peak of the proxy war on Syria.
Shara’a claimed to have ordered the ‘security forces’ to withdraw from Suwayda city. In fact, they were driven out by the Druze after a week of fighting. The ceasefire called in Damascus was still not holding after days.
Hundreds of Druze civilians were killed, but so were hundreds of their attackers. While their spiritual leaders were divided over how to respond, the Druze had been reinforcing their self-defence unit since the collapse of the government last December. The attack on Suwayda will lead them to redouble their efforts.
Israel milked the situation for all it was worth. Having collaborated since 2011 with the takfiris until the government was overthrown last December, it then turned on them whenever this suited its purposes. It quickly destroyed the defence capacity of what was the Syrian army and then capitalized further by occupying more territory.
In the name of defending the Druze, it bombed their attackers in Suwayda before bombing the ‘defence ministry’ in the heart of Damascus, near the presidential palace. Israel even issued orders as to when regime’s ‘security forces’ could enter Suwayda.
The Druze of southern Syria are a tough self-contained mountain people with a strong record of defending themselves and the Syrian Arab national interest going back to 1925, when Sultan Atrash led the great anti-colonial revolt against French occupation.
The attack on Suwayda has also sharpened divisions among the Lebanese Druze on how to respond, bearing in mind the need to avoid conflict with Lebanon’s Sunni Muslims, but there is full unity across borders on opposition to Israel.
Those who supported the ‘rebels’ in Syria need to reflect on the disastrous consequences of what they were supporting or what they were opposing, the ‘Assad regime’ in Damascus. In the Arab world, Palestinian animosity to the Assads dates back to the Lebanese civil war in the 1970s, the siege of Tal al Za’atar camp and the breakdown of relations between Syria and the Lebanese left/Palestinian alliance, culminating in the Syrian army standing back while Tal al Za’atar was overrun in 1976 and 2000 of its residents murdered by Lebanese fascists, 1500 on the last day.
This can never be forgotten by Palestinians and probably will never be forgiven but at the same time it should have been clear even in 2011-12 that support for the ‘rebel’ proxies of the ‘west’ and the gulf states on the basis of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ was going to lead to an unmitigated disaster for Syria and the Palestinian cause, as it has turned out to be.
Syria has been destroyed as a unified state, temporarily or otherwise. Damascus is in the hands of an ‘interim president’ supported by the governments that orchestrated the attack on Syria in 2011. A government which had stood by the Palestine cause since 1948, whatever its faults and disagreements with Palestinian factions, has been replaced by an ‘interim government’ which is fast selling them out.
Shara’a has negotiated with the Israelis in Baku and has reportedly agreed on the basics of a peace settlement with Israel that would concede Israeli control of most of the Golan Heights and take Syria into the so-called ‘Abraham Accords.
They are designed to build a state-to-state business model of the Middle East over the ruins of the ‘Palestine question.’ No longer even a question, Palestine would be turned into real estate.
Shara’a may have been ‘turned’ when he was a US prisoner in Camp Bucca in Iraq, but whether he was or was not makes no difference now that he is an open ‘western’/Gulf state/Israeli/Turkish asset.
Under his authority, senior Palestinian figures in Damascus have been detained and interrogated. Some have fled to Beirut. The resistance groups have been forced to surrender their weapons. Their assets have been seized and their activities restricted as part of an ‘understanding’ with the US.
Shara’a has recognized the completely discredited PA as the official representative of the Palestinians and given no indication that Hamas, whose leadership fled to Doha in 2012, will be welcome to return.
Latterly, his ‘interim government’ has even reportedly changed the status of Palestinians living in Syria from ‘Palestinian resident,’ given rights almost equivalent to those of Syrian nationals, to ‘foreigner’ with even their regional place of residence removed. This was attributed by unnamed ‘Syrian officials’ to ‘technical errors’, but there has been no official statement denying the change.
Shara’a headed a group proscribed as a terrorist organization in both the US and the UK, both of which hesitated to lift the designation because of its bloody record, even though Shara’a quickly proved his usefulness. All he really had to do to be forgiven was cross over to Israel.
Who has most of him is hard to say, but while he might be Turkiye’s man, America’s man, the Gulf states’ man, or Israel’s man, he is definitely not Syria’s man.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/palestine-and-syria-who-has-the-most-of-ahmad-al-sharaa/
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The Disintegration of Syria’s Government and Israel’s Insidious Plot
By Robert Inlakesh
July 23, 2025
What happened inside the Sweida Province over the last week has demonstrated that the new rulers of Syria simply have no power over the country and rely completely on outside help.
The sectarian bloodshed in southern Syria, culminating in bloody battles between Druze and Bedouin militia forces in Sweida City, revealed the rather shocking truth about the current state of affairs inside the country.
The conflict truly began on July 11, with the kidnapping of a trader from the Druze minority sect who was travelling towards the Syrian Capital. After Bedouin militiamen captured the Druze man, there was also an armed assault on a checkpoint area by Bedouin tribal forces. This eventually led to a breakout of clashes between Druze and Bedouin militias, in addition to the kidnapping of around a dozen Syrian Druze.
Syrian government-aligned security forces were sent into the Sweida province on July 13, in an alleged attempt to de-escalate tensions. Yet local Druze civilians and militias reported that the security forces had sided with the Bedouin tribal forces who share their Sunni Muslim identity.
Before anyone could get to the bottom of what was going on, Bedouin tribal forces began to mobilize across the country, as Druze militants also did the same in the Sweida province. The new Syrian army forces, aligned with the ruling Party of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) were then sent in, as the situation descended into what could only be described as a civil war-styled clash.
What was so telling about this situation was that not only did the new Syrian army forces participate in sectarian massacres, some of which were caught on film, but the agreements struck between the government of Syria’s leader, Ahmed al-Shara’a, and Druze militias failed until a third truce was called.
The first alleged ceasefire came about with the retreat of Syrian army forces from Sweida following an Israeli airstrike campaign that killed as many as 700 government-aligned fighters. Israel also bombed Syria’s Ministry of Defence building. Yet, the agreement did not hold more than a few hours before Druze separatist forces, aligned with Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, decided to continue fighting and enter Bedouin majority neighbourhoods.
Ahmed al-Shara’a appeared after nearly 48 hours of chaos for only 5 minutes, with a speech that was far from reassuring. We also heard three separate times that he was set to speak imminently, before his extremely short address came.
While Syrians had taken to the streets in their thousands to demand retaliation against Israel, which has been invading and bombing the country since December without any response, al-Shara’a claimed that his government had decided not to be “dragged” to war and instead negotiated an agreement with the Druze minority.
Yet, Israeli airstrikes continued and 41 Bedouin Tribes mobilised to fight Druze militia forces in Sweida. Sectarian violence ultimately claimed the lives of around 1,400 people and the Damascus government was pretty much nowhere to be seen.
After another alleged ceasefire failed, there were a few more days of intense fighting by Israeli-backed Druze forces, in addition to independent Druze militias not affiliated with Israel, against Bedouin tribes and elements of the Syrian army.
Out of nowhere, US Envoy Tom Barrack announced a bizarre ceasefire between Israel and Syria, urging all other parties to stop fighting. This was strange for a few reasons, the first of which was that the Syrian authorities had not fired a bullet towards Israeli forces; the only one firing was Israel. The only war was between Druze and Bedouin militias.
Later, as it appeared the Druze were ready to stop fighting after being promised that Sweida City would remain in their hands, the Bedouin Tribes were ultimately convinced to conclude a prisoner swap and reluctantly halted their offensive to capture all of Sweida. Clashes then continued for two days in the countryside, yet the situation somewhat stabilized.
In all of this, the lesson learnt here was that the Syrian government has no control over the country. The Bedouin Tribal forces can manage to mobilise as many as 75,000 fighters, while the combined forces of the Druze could be up to 60,000 fighters per some estimates. On the other hand, the Syrian State forces number no more than 30,000.
Every area of Syria is patrolled by local militias who wield the true power. In nearly 8 months, Ahmed al-Shara’a has failed to unite the country; he dismantled the Syrian army and security forces, instead replacing them with sectarian militia groups who are not equipped to deal with the current state of affairs inside the country. A deal struck previously with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has failed to come to fruition also.
Instead, the deeply fragmented country has only devolved into further chaos, with minority groups like the Christians, Alawites, Druze and Shia enduring routine civilian massacres, kidnappings, persecution, exclusion and field executions. Sometimes the sectarian violence comes at the hands of the State’s security forces, other times from unidentified militant groups brandishing ISIS patches.
A woman from the Sunni majority in Syria, who lives in Hama, told the Palestine Chronicle that the situation is chaotic. “We were hopeful when the regime fell at first, we thought the country would return to normal and we would have a new government, but instead many people lost their jobs and the extremists do whatever they want, from all sides.”
“I know many religious people here who would pray in the Mosque five times a day, now they only go to the Jummah (Friday prayer), because of the extremists who took over their Mosques”, she said. Continuing on, she added “many people feel like we are lost and don’t know what to do, but it is scary and there are killings every day that people don’t even hear about.”
What Will This Mean?
At the current moment, Syria can be considered a land, but there is clearly no real State to be spoken of. Instead, there is a leadership in Damascus that is speaking on behalf of a country that it doesn’t properly control. This leadership is completely in the hands of the US, EU and to an extent, Turkiye, which lead its decision making.
These outside actors are trying to forge a path forward, but are failing to stabilize the country. While there is an enormous amount of propaganda from all sides about Syria, any fair analysis has to factor in how Ahmed al-Shara’a actually seized power.
It was clear that the offensive from Idlib in late November was only geared towards capturing Aleppo to begin with, yet when Bashar al-Assad’s government began to evaporate the decision was made to capture Damascus.
The seizure of Aleppo had a number of tell-tale signs that the offensive wasn’t aimed at taking over the entire country and that al-Shara’a was not prepared for this. Perhaps the most obvious one was the pro-opposition propaganda set up to support the notion of a resistance force to the government in Damascus.
At the time, HTS even produced its own military spokesperson who wore a Kuffiyeh over his face and spoke in the exact same style as the spokesman for Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida. This masked militant figurehead soon disappeared from the scene with the capture of the capital.
When we consider that HTS was not prepared to take over the country, it makes a lot of sense why the inexperienced group has proven itself as politically incapable. Another factor here is that they are not independent; they are torn between the interests of the US, EU, Gulf States, Jordan and Israel. Syria has no sovereignty and if the current leadership makes mistakes, they are instantly punished and are threatened with elimination.
So, believing that it will make him safe, Ahmed al-Shara’a has relied on the US and desperate attempts to appease the Israelis at every turn, to keep his government in power. Yet, the Israelis see that he has no real control over the militias across his country, opening the door for them to continue pursuing their long-sought strategy to encourage the rise of a Druze State in the south that will serve as a convenient buffer and ally.
This kind of government in Damascus serves Israel’s agenda. On the one hand, it has disbanded the Syrian Arab Army and Israel has eliminated most of its strategic weapons, meaning it poses no existential threat alone, while on the other hand it refuses to even entertain the idea of resistance and works with Tel Aviv to ensure no threat will be posed to it.
What has emerged from the recent sectarian violence in southern Syria however, has been an uptick in support for Hezbollah and its weapons amongst the vast majority of the Lebanese population. After Lebanon’s Christians and Druze watched the bloodbath inside Syria, it immediately identified the need for Hezbollah to maintain its military capabilities in order to protect their nation.
The way that the Syrian leadership managed the sectarian violence even became too much for its US and European allies, which have started talking about the failure of the government in Damascus to control its own country.
To put this all into its historic context. The CIA helped to overthrow the Syrian government of Shukri al-Quwatli in 1949, which then plunged the country into a period of chaos. Syria didn’t properly begin to recover until the late 1960s and had even merged with Egypt to avoid total collapse.
This time, it will likely take years for the Syrian State to properly re-emerge and there is no chance for it to do so while handing over its sovereignty to the US and EU. Southern Syria, along with the Coastal region and North East, are all integral to the nation’s survival.
In order for there to be economic stability, the coast where the country has access to the Mediterranean is very important and has to be united, which cannot be done without the participation of the huge Alawite minority sect that lives there. North East Syria is the breadbasket of the nation and home to its oil and gas, in order for the area to stabilize there must be unity with the Kurdish minority.
Then we have southern Syria, which includes the Druze minorities enclave of Sweida, which is home to vital water resources. Allowing Israel to ethnically cleanse villages, occupy water resources and strategic locations means the decapitation of the nation itself. Dara’a is where the initial revolt against the Syrian government began, before it spiralled into full scale civil war, this area is now under direct Israeli threat and has been neglected.
While sectarian-minded Sunni Nationalists who hate the region’s minorities, claim that Syria’s number one enemy is Iran, the only path towards sovereignty is to work with the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance. There is no other actor on the planet that will back the only action which is going to lead to national unity, direct confrontation with Israel.
The current Syrian administration refuses to take this course, however, having entrenched itself with those who seek to ensure Syria will remain weak and answer only to the United States. Washington learnt from their catastrophic nation-building exercise in Iraq and appears willing to work with Damascus, but will not throw in the resources needed for the complete economic recovery of the country.
Unfortunately, the current Syrian leadership is pursuing a very similar strategy to the transitional administration that took over Sudan following the overthrow of its long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir. In the case of Khartoum, both the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Army attempted to collaborate with Israel, leading them to announce they would join the so-called Abraham Accords.
Sudan managed to get their State Sponsors of Terrorism designation lifted, along with US sanctions; it also got sanctions relief and sought out IMF loans in an attempt to transform their nation into a typical pro-West neo-liberal economic rump State. When the rather predictable escalation of violence erupted, Israel initially backed both sides in Sudan’s civil war, before eventually leaning towards the RSF.
According to Axios News, a meeting between Syrian, Israeli and US officials will occur on Thursday to discuss a security solution for southern Syria. Meanwhile, the Israelis will continue to work with Druze separatists, as it is also pursuing a normalisation deal with the HTS-led administration in Damascus.
All of this can be difficult to digest for many Syrians, who hold a range of different opinions on the current state of affairs inside their country. It is important to understand that there is no unified voice amongst the Syrian population. This is why emotions remain high and no matter what someone’s opinions are, no matter how balanced they may try to be, they will be attacked viciously for their actions. These emotions are normal, given the horrors that the Syrian people have endured. The Syrian civil war has not yet ended and accepting that can often prove painful.
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-disintegration-of-syrias-government-and-israels-insidious-plot/
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