A Middle Eastern lifeline built on family, faith and fear

JULIS, Israel — Located in a quiet corner of a quaint village in northern Israel, the building appears at first glance to house an elegant meeting hall decked out with giant chandeliers, ornate but uncomfortable chairs and candy trays.

But behind an improvised partition made of plywood and a stern guard slapping stickers on smartphone cameras, sits a team of volunteers working between large screens and laptops: the nerve center of an all-personnel humanitarian operation to help Syria’s Druze religious minority.

Druze in Israel have long been sending donations to their co-religionists in Syria’s southwestern province of Sweida, but since July, when nearly 1,000 Druze civilians were slaughtered in a sectarian massacre attack, a complex relief operation has emerged to serve tens of thousands of people from more than 40 miles of enemy territory.

“What were we supposed to do? Were we supposed to watch them being slaughtered and remain silent?” said Muwaffaq Tarif, spiritual head of Israel’s 150,000-strong Druze community.

Bringing together family ties in Syria and connections to the Israeli army and government, the operation in the central hall now provides funding, humanitarian and medical aid, as well as logistical and intelligence support, despite the months-long blockade of Sweida by Syrian forces.

The aid became part of a vital lifeline for the province, giving strength to Druze militias and spiritual leaders who have called for secession from Syria and an alliance with Israel.

The needs are great. Tarif sat with the volunteers in the lounge, their phones piling up calls and messages; the vast majority of them came from Druze in Syria.

“Every day, 500, 800, sometimes even a thousand people come. They all need my help. It makes you cry,” Tarif said.

Druze, a sect that combines elements of Islam and other religious traditions, number 1 million people worldwide; Approximately 500,000 people live in Syria, roughly 3% of the population. Strict Muslims consider them infidels.

During Syria’s 14-year civil war, dictatorial President Bashar al-Assad allowed them to form their own militia in Sweida and run affairs in the Druze-majority state as long as they did not clash with government troops or allow opposition rebels to enter. But they had little love for Assad or the Islamist-dominated opposition.

Following the ouster of Assad’s much-criticized regime last December, the new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, sought to allay concerns about the new government’s jihadist roots; Al-Sharaa was once an al-Qaeda-linked rebel leader but renounced the group years ago.

A poster of Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Shara, adorns a windshield in Damascus as Syrians commemorate the first anniversary of the fall of the Assad regime.

(John Wreford/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Al-Sharaa has vowed to protect Syria’s minorities and destroy extremists among its allies. This won it the support of the United States, Europe and its Arab neighbors, but Israel turned hostile, occupying parts of southern Syria and launching thousands of airstrikes to destroy the ousted government’s arsenal.

Meanwhile, Al-Sharaa called on the Druze leadership to disband their militias and surrender their weapons. Some wanted to cooperate, but Syria’s top Druze cleric, Hekmat al-Hijri, refused, saying their group would only disarm once al-Shara formed an inclusive government.

Syria is home to a wide variety of religions, and sectarian unrest has erupted as the new government tries to establish itself. In March, government-linked gunmen massacred approximately 1,500 people, mostly Alevis. Clashes broke out in Druze-majority areas near Damascus in May.

Then came the massacres in Sweida.

The events, which started with tit-for-tat kidnappings between Druze militias and Bedouin tribes in early July, quickly turned into street clashes. The government negotiated a ceasefire and sent security personnel, but instead of restoring order they joined the Bedouins in a blood-soaked rage.

They systematically burned and plundered approximately 32 villages, executed civilians, then dismembered their bodies and mistreated the men by shaving their mustaches, which is considered a sign of spiritual maturity among the Druze. And they filmed themselves doing it, proudly posting videos of the trophy on social media.

Families were evacuated from southern Syria by the United Nations in July following violent clashes between Bedouin fighters and members of the Druze community.

(Bakr Alkasem / AFP via Getty Images)

At the end of the attack, approximately 200,000 people were forced to flee their homes. More than 100 women and girls were kidnapped. Dozens of people are still missing.

Al-Hijri called on President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rescue Sweida, saying “we can no longer coexist with a regime that only knows iron and fire.”

When news of what happened reached Tarif, he took immediate action.

“We called everyone, [Israeli] The army, the government, the prime minister, the defense minister and the chief of general staff must stop the massacres. The Syrian government was entering with tanks, unmanned aerial vehicles and artillery. “The description was the army fighting against civilians with pistols or rifles,” he said.

Israel, which made offers to the Druze in Syria, took action. Netanyahu ordered an airstrike on Syrian personnel who attacked the Syrian army’s headquarters in Damascus and the presidential palace, as well as the capital of Sweida province.

Al-Sharaa accused Israel of provoking internal divisions and said Al-Hijri’s call for international intervention was unacceptable. He established a committee to investigate atrocities against Druze and others, and swore in a speech In September, a call was made to the United Nations General Assembly to “bring every hand stained with the blood of innocents to justice.”

Al-Hijri and many Druze who had previously been conciliatory towards Al-Sharaa were not convinced and demanded to leave.

A tense standoff also emerged: Syrian government forces surrounded the province, ostensibly to keep Bedouins and Druze apart, but critics accused them of copying Assad’s surrender-or-starve tactics to force Sweida to surrender.

Most Druze in Israel wanted to help.

“The world was ignoring what was happening, so we have to do this. Our women sold their gold, people sold their property, others took loans to raise money,” Tarif said, adding that approximately 2.5 million dollars were collected.

Since there was no land connection between Sweida and the Israeli-occupied areas of southern Syria, the only way to deliver aid was through the Israeli air force. However, the quantities were insufficient. This was the spark of the operations room.

Standing in the middle of a row of workstations, a volunteer described how his team identified sympathetic individuals to buy medicine and food from Damascus and middlemen who bribed Sweida with supplies through government checkpoints. They also smuggled equipment and paid labor to improve water and electricity infrastructure. Tarif said that some convoys entered with the Syrian Red Crescent with the knowledge of Damascus.

“If we use $10,000 here, nothing will happen. But in Syria, they go a long way and buy plenty of supplies,” said the volunteer.

The center financed the conversion of a judicial building in Sweida into a displacement center housing 130 families, complete with a workshop where women could sew clothes, including uniforms for the Druze militia.

Other volunteers brought their expertise to the table: While Sweida’s medical facilities were being destroyed, the center was running four hospitals in the province.

Programmers created an app-based humanitarian ecosystem, allowing Sweida residents to sign up for medical care, while doctors used WhatsApp messages to consult experts in Israel and elsewhere.

Other programs coordinated requests and deliveries of aid or helped residents document atrocities.

“We used our skills to defend ourselves,” said a 28-year-old activist from the operations room technical team, as he took out his phone to demo some apps. One for medical procedures featured drop-down menus and a simple interface and was used by thousands of people, he said.

Some aid turned into intelligence. Since Sweida was still under threat, the team, some of whose members had retired from military service, followed the developments at the scene. They used bots to monitor posts on social media that might indicate an attack, hacked into the phones of commanders in the area, and passed the information to the Israeli army and Druze militias.

Meanwhile, activists in Sweida say the Israeli army is supplying the militia with a limited amount of weapons and ammunition and monitoring the area with drones.

Members of the Druze community in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights are gathering for a rally in July to show solidarity with the Druze in Syria.

(Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images)

All this made the Sweida militia more effective. But it also strengthened Hijri’s plan to separate the province, about 60 miles southeast of Damascus, from Israel. In recent speeches he refers to Sweida as Bashan, his Hebrew Bible name, and the forces under his control fly the Israeli flag alongside the Druze flag. Last week, Hijri forces unveiled new uniforms and logos that critics pointed out included the Star of David in their design.

For his part, Tarif, who says he is in daily contact with Al-Hijri and Al-Sharaa’s intermediaries, insists that “the ball is in Jolani’s court,” using Al-Sharaa’s nickname.

“Do this tomorrow. Open an international humanitarian corridor to Sweida. Bring people back to their homes. Return the kidnapped. Simple,” Tarif said.

At the same time, local opposition to Hijri is intensifying after Hijri forces tortured and killed two Druze clerics whom they accused of “treason” for contacting state authorities.

“He gathers thugs around himself and silences every voice that seeks a solution with the state,” said an activist in Sweida, who declined to give his name for fear of retaliation. Many in Sweida feel caught between Hijri and the government they learned to fear in Damascus.

“As a Druze, if I want to stand against Hijri and his gangs, who can I go to?” the activist asked. “How can we trust the state that massacres my people?”