The post Herzog meets Druze leader after ‘horrific’ Syria violence, calls for de-escalation appeared first on The Times of Israel.

A video purporting to show the execution-style murder of Hosam Saraya, an American citizen, raises new questions about the new Syrian leader Trump has endorsed.

Israel says it is intervening to protect Syria’s Druze residents who have strong ties to Israel’s Druze community. Damascus called the attack a violation of sovereignty.

Ongoing sectarian violence in Sweida, Syria has triggered mass displacement in the area as humanitarians attempt to deliver aid.

Syria's government misread how Israel would respond to its troops deploying to the country's south this week, encouraged by U.S. messaging that Syria should be governed as a centralized state, eight sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The latest escalation began with a Bedouin tribe in Sweida setting up a checkpoint and attacking and robbing a Druze man, which triggered tit-for-tat attacks and kidnappings, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, said the clashes started after members of a Bedouin tribe in Sweida province set up a checkpoint where they attacked and robbed a Druze man, leading to tit-for-tat attacks and kidnappings between the tribes and Druze armed groups.

Church in the southern Syrian province of Sweida, smashed Christian symbols, and set fire to its ceiling and walls.

The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR) documented a significant outbreak of brutality in the killings that gripped Suweida province.

More than 100,000 civilians have had to flee homes and refugee camps because of violence in Idlib province. "Barrel bombs are just falling on the heads of these people," says a civil defense worker.