The new Syrian national army may have withdrawn after 48 hours of fighting from the Druze stronghold in southern Syria, but in recent hours the city has come under a new siege, this time by an irregular army, specifically of Bedouins. According to local media reports, thousands of heavily armed men from local tribes are moving in a coordinated manner toward the city and are expected to lay siege to it.

The head of the Bedouin Council, Sheikh Abdul Munim al-Nasif, has called for a general mobilization and an immediate march toward Sweida, in order to ‘rescue the inhabitants’ from what he described as a massacre against the Bedouins of the region.

In the videos that are increasingly coming to light, fighters without insignia of the Syrian national army are depicted, which seems to have no supervisory presence in the area, in a situation that appears to be slipping more and more each day from the control of the country’s transitional President, Al Saraa, as well as from his transitional government.

Israel, for its part, which has made it abundantly clear that it will protect this particular minority by any means and has carried out targeted airstrikes both in the specific area and in Damascus, has also given these groups a 24-hour deadline to withdraw from the area.

Sources from Tel Aviv emphasize that if the crisis escalates, it is not unlikely that the IDF will advance into Syria from the positions it holds in the Golan Heights, in order to ensure that no massacres take place.

According to Syrian organizations, both the White Helmets and the Syrian Observatory, more than 90 people have lost their lives in recent days of fighting, while over 800 have been injured.