Bedouin civilians evacuate Syria's Sweida as tense truce holds

DAMASCUS: Hundreds of Bedouin civilians were evacuated from Syria’s predominantly Druze city of Sweida on Monday as part of a U.S.-backed truce meant to end fighting that has killed hundreds of people, state media and witnesses said.

With hundreds reported killed, the violence in the southern province of Sweida has posed a major test for interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, drawing Israeli airstrikes last week and deepening fissures in a country fractured by 14 years of war.

A ceasefire took hold on Sunday as interior ministry security forces deployed on Sweida’s outskirts. Interior Minister Anas Khattab said on Sunday the truce would allow for the release of hostages and detainees held by the warring sides.

On Monday morning, ambulances, trucks and buses ferried hundreds of Bedouin civilians including women, children and wounded people out of Sweida to nearby displacement camps, Reuters footage showed.

The initial batch included some 300 Bedouins, and a second group of about 550 civilians will be evacuated within the next 24 hours if the situation remains calm, said Shoaib Asfour, a member of the Syrian security forces overseeing the evacuation.

The next phase would see the evacuation of Bedouin fighters detained by Druze militias and the transfer of bodies of Bedouins killed in the fighting, Asfour said.

Syria’s state news agency said a total of 1,500 Bedouins would be evacuated from Sweida city.

Citing Ahmed al-Dalati, head of Syria’s internal security forces in Sweida, state media said those forces would also facilitate the return to Sweida of others displaced from it.

According to the United Nations, at least 93,000 people have been uprooted by the fighting – most of them within Sweida province but others to Daraa province to the west, or north to the countryside around the capital Damascus.

The U.N. said on Sunday that humanitarian convoys with medical supplies had been waiting to enter Sweida for two days but were not granted access. It said only a convoy of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent had been allowed to enter.

PRESSURES ON SYRIA’S MOSAIC

The Druze are a small but influential minority in Syria, Israel and Lebanon.

Citing the goal of protecting the Druze and keeping southern Syria demilitarized, Israel attacked government forces last week in the south and struck the defence ministry in Damascus.

Washington, which has expressed support for Damascus since Sharaa met U.S. President Donald Trump in May, said it did not approve of Israel’s strikes.

U.S. envoy Tom Barrack said on Monday the Syrian government needed to be held accountable. “They also need to be given the responsibility that they’re there to do,” he said, speaking on a visit to Beirut.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz defended Israel’s attacks on government targets, saying they were “the only way to stop the massacre of Druze in Syria”.

The fighting began a week ago with clashes between Bedouin and Druze fighters. Damascus sent troops to quell the fighting.

Hamzah Mustafa, Syria’s information minister, told Reuters last week that the Damascus government strongly condemned all abuses and rejected sectarian violence in all its forms.

Interim President al-Sharaa has promised to protect the rights of Druze and hold to account those who committed violations against “our Druze people”. He has blamed the violence on “outlaw groups”.

After Israel bombed Syrian government forces in Sweida and hit the defence ministry in Damascus last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded the demilitarisation of southern Syrian territory near the border, stretching from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to the Druze Mountain, east of Sweida.

He also said Israel would protect the Druze.