Damascus is acting in coordination with the United States to take control over Jabal al-Arab, which houses the majority of the Druze population in southern Syria, Israeli broadcaster KAN News said quoting a Syrian official.
Although the official said the American support is conditional on not harming Israel's national security, Tel Aviv does not feel comfortable with it.
According to the Israeli TV report, the Syrian official, who is interested in military affairs, said the Syrian government has been acting under the impression that the US coordinates and supports Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s actions to take control over the province.
The official noted that Syria's government has yet to decide on re-entering Sweida, explaining that “it will happen sooner or later, hopefully through dialogue and understanding.”
Late on Saturday, Kan 11 said that during negotiations with Syria, Israel had made it clear that security understandings must include a mechanism allowing Tel Aviv to open a humanitarian corridor to Syria's southern province of Sweida.
The American officials took this request into consideration when they said Washington’s support is conditional both on Sharaa’s actions not harming Israel's national security and that there be no further massacres of the Druze currently living in the area, such as in the case of Sweida in October 2025.
Members of the community in Sweida told The Jerusalem Post they are concerned about the re-entry of Syrian army forces into the southern province, recalling that in October, 2,500 people were murdered by state-backed factions.
Kan 11 had quoted an Israeli security source as saying that Israel is ready to expand its military strikes in Syria, if attacks against the Druze community continue, stressing that “escalation will be met with escalation.”
The comment, diffused via KAN, came while the province of Sweida has experienced, for several weeks, a state of relative calm.
Last July, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had committed to keeping the southwest region of Syria as a demilitarized zone within Israel. “We will not allow the creation of a second Lebanon [in southern] Syria,” he said.
Meanwhile, Syrian and Israeli officials are expected to meet soon under US mediation, perhaps in Paris, to finalize a security agreement between Damascus and Jerusalem, a source close to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa told i24NEWS on Saturday.
According to the Syrian source, the talks will also focus on various potential joint strategic and economic projects in the buffer zones between the two countries.
Previous rounds of US-mediated talks between Syrian and Israeli officials have failed to produce a security agreement aimed at stabilizing the border area, according to Reuters.
