- Title: Israeli Druze prepare for first visit by Syrian Druze in decades
- Date: 13th March 2025
- Summary: JULIS, ISRAEL (MARCH 13, 2025) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF DRUZE LEADER IN ISRAEL SHEIKH MOWAFAQ TARIF AT HIS HOUSE (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) DRUZE LEADER IN ISRAEL, SHEIKH MOWAFAQ TARIF, SAYING: "We are anticipating this, the entire Druze sect considers tomorrow a historical day and a holiday after a decades-long absence. The last visit from Hader areas and its surroundings was fifty
- Embargoed:
- Keywords: Druze Israel Syria Tarif leader
- Location: JULIS, ISRAEL
- City: JULIS, ISRAEL
- Country: Israel
- Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Middle East
- Reuters ID: LVA001854013032025RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:The head of the Druze community in Israel on Thursday (March 13) hailed plans for the first visit by a Druze religious delegation from Syria in five decades, despite escalating cross-border tensions underscored by an Israeli airstrike on Damascus.
The Druze, an Arab minority who practise a religion originally derived from Islam, live in Lebanon, Syria, Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, occupying a distinctive position in the region's mosaic of faiths and cultures.
Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif said the visit by around 100 Syrian Druze religious elders on Friday (March 14) would be the first to Israel in some 50 years, when a group came in the immediate aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur war between Israel, Syria and Egypt.
The religious elders, mostly from a string of Druze villages on the slope of Mount Hermon in Syria, are expected to visit shrines including sites held to be the tomb of prophet Shuayb, west of Tiberias, in the Lower Galilee.
Friday's visit, which has not been officially confirmed, offers a further sign of Israel's efforts to show its support for Syria's Druze minority even as its suspicion of the new Islamist government in Damascus becomes increasingly evident.
Israel has moved troops into a number of positions in Syrian territory and warned that it would not accept Syrian troops south of Damascus. Following increased sectarian violence in Syria, Israel has even said it would be willing to defend the Druze communities in that country if they were attacked.
However Tarif said he did not believe it would be necessary for Israel to intervene to defend the Druze in Syria.
(Production: Ammar Awad, Mustafa Abu Ganeyeh, Nuha Sharaf) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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