Israel’s military is told to prepare to defend a Druze community outside Syria’s capital

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s defense ministry on Saturday said the military has been instructed to prepare to defend a Druze settlement in the suburbs of Damascus, asserting that the minority it has vowed to protect was “under attack” by Syrian forces.

The statement, citing an order from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, follows an Israeli warning last weekend that the forces of neighboring Syria’s new government and the insurgent group that led last year’s ouster of former President Bashar Assad should not enter the area south of Damascus.

Saturday’s statement indicates that Israeli forces could push farther into Syria as its new authorities try to consolidate control after more than a decade of civil war. Israeli forces recently set up posts in a buffer zone and on strategic Mt. Hermon nearby. There have been no major clashes between Israeli troops and Syria’s new forces.

“We will not allow the terrorist regime of radical Islam in Syria to harm the Druze. If the regime harms the Druze, it will be harmed by us,” the statement said.

There was no immediate response from Syria’s government.

The Druze are a religious minority who live in southern Syria and in Israel’s Golan Heights, where they navigate their historically Syrian identity while living under Israeli rule.

Israel’s statement followed the outbreak of unrest Friday in the Druze settlement of Jaramana, when a member of the security forces entered and started shooting in the air, leading to an exchange of fire with local gunmen that left him dead.

On Saturday, gunmen came from the Damascus suburb of Mleiha to Jaramana, where they clashed with Druze gunmen. That left one Druze fighter dead and nine other people wounded, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor.

The Israeli warning last Sunday to Syrian forces and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the main former rebel group, made clear that Israeli forces would stay in parts of southern Syria for an indefinite period.

“We demand the complete demilitarization of southern Syria in the provinces of Quneitra, Daraa and Sweida from the forces of the new regime,” that earlier statement said. “Likewise, we will not tolerate any threat to the Druze community in southern Syria.”

After the fall of Assad in December, Israel seized the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone on Syrian territory. The zone was set up under a 1974 ceasefire agreement. Syria’s new authorities and U.N. officials have called for Israel to withdraw.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s government has been under pressure to protect Israelis living near border areas in the north as it tries to return residents of the north to their homes.