MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Let's head overseas and examine why Israel is launching airstrikes inside Syria, five in the last week. Regional neighbors condemn these strikes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says they are necessary to protect one of Syria's religious minorities from sectarian fighting, fighting that has broken out since the fall last year of the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. The minority are members of the Druze religious group. They live on both sides of the Israel-Syria border. NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi joins me now from Haifa - that's in the north of Israel. Hi, Hadeel.
HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: Hello.
KELLY: So as we try to understand what's happening here, just tell us a little bit more. Who are the Druze?
AL-SHALCHI: Right. So the Druze are a religious minority, an offshoot from Shia Islam. And when Israel captured the Golan Heights after the 1967 war here, the Druze community became separated between Israel and Syria. Historically, the Druze philosophy has been to try to live at peace with the rulers of their land. That's pretty important in a region where borders have shifted so often. And some in the Golan Heights have taken Israeli citizenship, but many still see themselves a Syrian.
KELLY: OK. So to the current developments, when Netanyahu says he needs to protect the Druze, what has been happening along that border?
AL-SHALCHI: Right. So immediately after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria last December, Israel started striking Syrian military installations and also seized a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone on Syrian territory and began to slowly expand it into Syrian villages. Israel said that all of this was to protect itself from attacks similar to the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023. But now the Israeli government says that the airstrikes are in the name of protecting the Syrian Druze community.
See, in Syria recently, there's been sectarian violence in their villages between the Druze militia and forces loyal to the new Syrian government. Just in the last week, a hundred Druze in Syria were killed in these clashes, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. And there's this mutual distrust. Some Druze see the new rulers of Syria as these hard-line Islamists, and some of the armed factions in that new government see the Druze as heretics.
KELLY: Well tell us what you see, what you're hearing. You're - I said you're in the north of Israel right now. You're talking to people from the Druze community.
AL-SHALCHI: Yeah. So I traveled to the Golan Heights, to a town called Majdal Shams. I met an Israeli Druze family whose daughter married a Syrian Druze, and she lives near Damascus. And just a few days ago, they had to flee their village because of that sectarian violence. And now they're living in a small house right on the Syrian side of the border to Israel, but she can't cross because of military operations there. So, you know, I stood right there at the border with her mother, holding up binoculars, waving to her daughter in the distance. And the brother, Hasan Abu Saleh, said he wanted Israel to do more.
HASAN ABU SALEH: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-SHALCHI: Abu Saleh said the airstrikes aren't enough. He wants to see international pressure, led by Israel, to make Syria disarm its Islamist forces.
KELLY: It's so complex. Do people who oppose Israeli interference - I mean, what are they saying?
AL-SHALCHI: Well, I spoke to one of them. His name is Saeed Nafaa (ph). He's a former Israeli Druze parliament member and community leader. He says that Israel is using his community as a pawn to further its own political agenda, to redraw the map of the Middle East and take more land for itself.
KELLY: Anything specific we should be keeping an eye out for in terms of future developments?
AL-SHALCHI: I mean, it's noteworthy to say that Syria's leadership has made it very clear for months that it actually - it doesn't want any trouble with Israel. And the Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has been on this campaign to get more international legitimacy and support. This week he met with the French president. So we'll be looking out for how the international community responds to possibly more Israeli airstrikes and its expansion of the buffer zone.
KELLY: That is NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Haifa, in the north of Israel. Thanks, Hadeel.
AL-SHALCHI: Of course. You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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