Israeli forces ordered the Bedouin residents of Ein Ayoub to leave after declaring their village a ‘closed military zone’. Residents had faced weeks of settler attacks, arson, and drone flights over their homes, before soldiers gave them just minutes to leave.
Published On 13 Aug 202513 Aug 2025
Syria’s armed Bedouin clans have announced their withdrawal from the Druze-majority city of Suwayda after weeklong clashes and a United States-brokered ceasefire.
Fighting between Druze fighters and Sunni Muslim clans killed more than 250 people and threatened to unravel Syria’s already fragile post-war transition.
Israel also launched dozens of air strikes in the southern province of Suwayda, targeting government forces, who had in effect sided with the Bedouins.
The fighting also led to a series of sectarian attacks against the Druze community, followed by revenge attacks against the Bedouins.
Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has been perceived as more sympathetic to the Bedouins, tried to appeal to the Druze community while remaining critical of its fighters. He later urged the Bedouins to leave the city, saying they “cannot replace the role of the state in handling the country’s affairs and restoring security”.
Dozens of armed Bedouins alongside other clans from around the country who came to support them remained on the outskirts of Suwayda as government security forces and military police were deployed on Sunday to oversee their exit from the entire province. The Bedouin fighters blamed the clashes on Druze factions loyal to spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri and accused them of harming Bedouin families.
The Syrian government on Monday began evacuating Bedouin families trapped inside Suwayda.
Syrian state media said on Sunday that the government had coordinated with some officials in Suwayda to bring in coaches to evacuate about 1,500 Bedouins from the city. Interior Minister Ahmad al-Dalati told the SANA news agency that the initiative would also allow displaced civilians from Suwayda to return because the fighting has largely stopped and efforts for a complete ceasefire are ongoing.
Syrian authorities did not give further details about the evacuation or how it ties into the broader agreement after failed talks for a captive exchange deal.
Syrian security forces are preparing to redeploy to Suwayda to quell fighting between the Druze and Bedouin tribes, the Syrian Interior Ministry spokesperson has said.
Israel has previously warned the Syrian government to withdraw from the south and its forces carried out an attack Friday on Syria’s Palmyra-Homs highway, targeting a convoy of Bedouin fighters who were reportedly making their way towards restive Suwayda in the south of the country, according to Israel’s public broadcaster Kan News.
This comes just two days after Israel carried out heavy attacks on Damascus.
Bedouin fighters in Syria said they launched a new offensive against Druze fighters late on Thursday, despite the withdrawal of Syrian government forces from the southwestern province of Suwayda, and an attempt by the Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to draw a line under a recent eruption of deadly violence that killed hundreds.
A Bedouin military commander told the Reuters news agency that the truce only applied to government forces and not to them, adding that the fighters were seeking to free Bedouins whom Druze armed groups had detained in recent days.
Bedouin fighters have managed to reach the Suwayda area in the last few hours, the Kan report said, confirming earlier reports from Arabic-language news media.
Syria’s leadership has condemned Israel’s attacks as a violation of its sovereignty amid attempts to cement a ceasefire between Bedouin and Druze fighters.
Israel has justified its latest bombing of Syria under the pretext that it is protecting the Druze minority. But the country has more self-serving reasons.
Israel has long attacked Syria, even before the latest outbreak of violence involving the Druze in Suwayda.
Since the removal of longtime leader Bashar al-Assad after a devastating 14-year war, Israel has struck Syria hundreds of times and invaded and occupied about 400sq km (155sq miles) of its territory, excluding the western Golan Heights, which it has occupied since 1967.
Leading analysts within Israel suggest that these latest attacks may not have been entirely motivated by concern for the welfare of the Druze, so much as the personal and political aims of the Israeli government and its embattled prime minister.
The latest reports of violence come despite a ceasefire agreed on Wednesday, after Israel had conducted its own attacks on Syria, striking the Ministry of Defence and near the presidential palace in Damascus.
Al-Sharaa said in a televised speech on Thursday that protecting the country’s Druze citizens and their rights was a priority as he announced that local leaders would take control of security in Suwayda in a bid to end sectarian violence in the south and stop Israel from attacking.
Sheikh Hikmat Al Hijri, one of the spiritual leaders of the Syrian Druze community said, ” We are not sectarian, and we have never wanted to cause division. We hold full responsibility for anyone who tampers with security and stability. We affirm that whoever engages in sabotage or incitement represents only himself, and we reject that his actions be attributed to any sect or region.”
In the meantime, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has condemned Israel’s days of attacks on Syria in a phone conversation with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
The emir described Israel’s bombing of Syria as a “flagrant violation” of the country’s sovereignty, international law, the United Nations Charter, “and a threat to regional stability”, according to a statement from Sheikh Tamim’s office on Friday.
President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that Turkiye would not allow Syria to be divided or its multicultural structure and territorial integrity harmed, after Israel’s actions sought to “sabotage” a ceasefire in the country.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian leader al-Sharaa discussed Israel’s attacks on Damascus in a phone call on Thursday, the presidency said, adding Erdogan had voiced support for Damascus.
Turkiye played a crucial role in securing a ceasefire in Syria following Israeli air attacks on Damascus. Turkish intelligence officials held talks with Syria’s Druze leader, a Turkish security source said on Thursday.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce has said the United States condemns violence in Syria and called on the Syrian government to lead the path forward.
“We are engaging diplomatically with Israel and Syria at the highest levels, both to address the present crisis and reach a lasting agreement between the two sovereign states,” she said on Thursday.
Bruce continued that “regarding Israel’s intervention and activity” in Syria, the US “did not support recent Israeli strikes”.
It was unclear if Bruce’s comments referred to just US logistical support for the Israeli military’s attacks against Syria.
At least 50 Palestinian families from a Bedouin community in the occupied West Bank have fled their homes, following repeated assaults and harassment from Israeli settlers under the protection of Israeli forces, according to media reports and a local rights group.
Thirty Palestinian families were forcibly displaced on Friday morning from the Arab Mleihat Bedouin community, northwest of Jericho, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, while 20 others were displaced on Thursday.
Before the forced displacement, the community was home to 85 families, numbering about 500 people.
A Palestinian rights group, the Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, said the families were forced to leave after years trying to defend themselves “without any support”. Attacks by Israeli forces and Israelis from illegal settlements have surged across the occupied West Bank since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023.
Alia Mleihat told Wafa that her family was forced to flee to the Aqbat Jabr refugee camp, south of Jericho, after armed settlers threatened her and other families at gunpoint.
Separately, Mahmoud Mleihat, a 50-year-old father of seven from the community, told the Reuters news agency that they could not take it any more, so they decided to leave.
“The settlers are armed and attack us, and the [Israeli] military protects them. We can’t do anything to stop them,” he said.
Hassan Mleihat, director of the Al-Baidar Organization, said families in the community began dismantling their tents, following sustained provocation and attacks by Israeli settlers and the army.
Footage posted on social media and verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency showed trucks loaded with possessions driving away from the area at night.
Hassan told Wafa that the attacks also threatened to erase the community, and “open the way for illegal colonial expansion”.
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has documented repeated acts of violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in Mu’arrajat, near Jericho, where the Mleihat tribe lives.
In 2024, settlers armed with clubs stormed a Palestinian school, while in 2023, armed settlers blocked the path of vehicles carrying Palestinians, with some firing into the air and others hurling stones at the vehicles.
“We want to protect our children, and we’ve decided to leave,” Mahmoud said, describing it as a great injustice.
He had lived in the community since he was 10, Mahmoud said.
Alia Mleihat told Reuters the Bedouin community, which had lived there for 40 years, would now be scattered across different parts of the Jordan Valley, including nearby Jericho.
“People are demolishing their own homes with their own hands, leaving this village they’ve lived in for decades, the place where their dreams were built,” she said, describing the forced displacement of 30 families as a “new Nakba”.
The Nakba, meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes during 1948 at the birth of the state of Israel.
Israel’s military has not yet commented on the settler harassment faced by the Bedouin families or about the families leaving their community.
Asked about violence in the occupied West Bank, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters on Monday that any acts of violence by civilians were unacceptable and that individuals should not take the law into their own hands.
Activists say Israeli settlement expansion has accelerated in recent years, displacing Palestinians, who have remained on their land under military occupation since Israel captured the occupied West Bank in the 1967 war.
Most countries consider Israeli settlements illegal and a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which ban settling civilians on occupied land.