Syrian fighters kill hundreds of minority Druze adults and children

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story contains graphic details that may not be suitable for all readers.

In the last week, Syrian government forces, now dominated by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), carried out a massacre of the Druze minority in Sweida in southern Syria, reportedly killing more than 350 people. Victims included patients and doctors at a local hospital, with militants committing atrocities that include beheadings, rapes, and executions. One video shows soldiers kicking to death Druze men who have their hands zip-tied behind their backs. Other footage depicts security forces humiliating Druze men by forcibly shaving their religiously significant facial hair.

The massacre has drawn little condemnation from major human rights organizations and none from pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Several media outlets mischaracterized the violence as tribal clashes between local groups.

The attack marks the second mass killing of a Syrian religious or ethnic group in just four months. Though the government denied responsibility, the scale of the killings and the involvement of such a large number of troops point to official sanctioning of the violence. That has raised alarm among Syria’s minority communities, who fear the current government is reviving the sectarian cleansing that ISIS once carried out—and some worry that ISIS factions have infiltrated HTS or are collaborating with it.

In the wake of the massacre, HTS leader and Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa publicly vowed to protect the Druze, as he promised to do for the Alawites after March massacres reportedly killed about 1,500 of that minority. In both cases, it was his own forces who carried out the atrocities.

The regime claims it deployed its troops to enforce a local truce between Druze and Bedouin factions, but eyewitnesses say they instead massacred the Druze. In response, Israel launched dozens of airstrikes to defend the Druze, targeting Syrian military convoys, the defense ministry, and sites near the presidential palace in Damascus. Many Druze who live in Israel are loyal citizens with a long record of military service. Under Israeli pressure, Syrian forces withdrew from Sweida and agreed to a ceasefire.

HTS took over Syria in December after deposing Russia-backed President Bashar Assad. Current President Ahmad al-Sharaa was originally dispatched to Syria in July 2011 by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, then leader of the group that would become ISIS, to establish a Syrian branch. That branch became known as Jabhat al-Nusra and eventually pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda rather than ISIS.

While HTS later claimed to break with both al-Qaeda and ISIS, the ideology underpinning many of its actions remains unchanged.

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Trump administration ended the terrorist designation for HTS. Retired Marine Col. Darren Duke, a former foreign area officer with extensive experience in the Middle East, said that move aimed to stabilize the country. Duke noted that, while Washington experts don’t trust al-Sharaa, many see him as preferable to the alternative: “It’s better than a failed-state Syria.” Regional governments agree, he said, and are eager to normalize relations and begin reconstruction. “Everybody in that region is tired of that neighborhood being on fire,” he said.

The Druze are a small religious and ethnic minority whose religion originated in the 11th century as an offshoot of Islam, incorporating elements of Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, and other philosophies. Sunni extremists do not consider them Muslims, and groups like HTS, ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army have long viewed them as heretics or infidels. Sunni jihadist ideology often considers it a religious duty to kill, enslave, or forcibly convert religious minorities such as the Druze, Alawites, and Yazidis.

An estimated 700,000 Druze live in Syria, primarily in the southern region around Sweida. Their distinct religious identity, refusal to convert, and occasional cooperation with outside forces, such as Israel, the United States, or Druze groups in Lebanon, have made them recurring targets of sectarian violence.

Duke explained that while Israel’s intervention may appear altruistic, it was fundamentally about national security. “This is not a ‘save the Druze’ thing,” he said. “The Israelis follow their own national interests. They’ve long maintained the Golan Heights as one of the quietest borders. A large, kinetic Syrian force establishing a presence near that frontier is unacceptable to them.”

A relief team in Sweida shared video footage taken after the massacre showing a dead baby, covered in blood, lying in the back of a pickup truck. The anguished cries of the baby’s father echo in the background. A long line of corpses, members of the Druze minority, lies on a blood-soaked sidewalk. Most of the bodies are covered with blankets, but their faces remain exposed so grieving families can identify them. A doctor in blue scrubs sits helplessly amid the dead, atop a pile of empty medical supply boxes. Civilians and armed men mill about the chaotic scene, some screaming, others crying or murmuring prayers, as they search among the victims for their loved ones.

A video recorded by the perpetrators after the attack shows militants moving through the darkened Sweida National Hospital after their rampage. The walls and floors are splattered with blood. At the end of one corridor, a room is filled with bodies piled on top of one another, some in medical uniforms, others in hospital gowns, with limbs bandaged. The camera pans down another hallway, revealing more corpses laid out along the floor, some covered in blankets or plastic tarps. The footage then shows several hospital rooms where patients were killed in their beds.

As the fighter films, he chants a mix of militant-nationalist slogans and religious exclamations, including “Allahu Akbar”—God is great.

Witnesses reported seeing government soldiers flying ISIS flags. In one video, a soldier wearing an ISIS emblem on his chest tells the camera that his division “will proceed to enter the city of Sweida in order to cleanse it of the filth of al-Hijri and his followers.”

While Duke was confident HTS forces committed the massacre, he doubted the Syrian president and HTS leader personally ordered it. “I just can’t imagine that al-Sharaa, who is strategic, would think this is the time to start settling old scores against 3.2% of the population,” he said. Duke believes al-Sharaa is caught between moderating factions and the hardline fighters who brought him to power. The atrocity, he said, was likely carried out by extremist elements within HTS acting without leadership approval, and he warned that such violence could easily reoccur.

One widely shared photo shows young doctors and nurses sitting together in a corridor at the hospital, smiling—unaware that they would soon be massacred. “The entire medical staff at Sweida Hospital was completely wiped out,” the caption reads. “There are no words to describe this. … What did the doctors do? What did the doctor or nurse do for you to kill them, why???”