Israel launched rare strikes in Damascus on Wednesday in a campaign it said was aimed at defending the Druze community after days of clashes in the southern city of Sweida.

“The Israeli Druze are now trying to use that and urge the Israeli government to protect fellow Druze in Syria,” he said, explaining, in part, the justification for Israel’s strikes on Syria, where the Druze community has traditionally been anti-Israel, even as some leaders grow closer to Israel.

Members of Syria's Druze community are searching for loved ones and counting their dead after days of clashes in a southern province that left bloodied bodies of civilians on the streets and homes loo

BEIRUT (Reuters) -One elderly man had been shot in the head in his living room. Another in his bedroom. The body of a woman lay in the street. After days of bloodshed in Syria's Druze city of Sweida,

Armed tribes supported by Syria's Islamist-led government clashed with Druze fighters outside Sweida Friday a day after government troops withdrew from the Druze-majority city, the warring parties and a monitoring group said.