Jordan Daily - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he had spoken directly with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa during deadly clashes involving the Druze minority in southern Syria in July 2025, marking his first public acknowledgement of direct contact.
"I called al-Sharaa. It was a very short, very sharp conversation, and the slaughter stopped," Netanyahu said at an election rally with Israel's Druze community, according to footage broadcast by Israeli public broadcaster KAN. He did not specify when the call took place.
The clashes in Sweida province pitted Druze armed factions against Bedouin fighters, before Syrian government security forces and tribal groups became involved. A Syrian government committee said it had documented 1,760 deaths.
Israel, which has its own Druze community, intervened militarily during the violence, striking targets in Sweida and Damascus and saying it was acting to protect the minority. Government-aligned forces later withdrew from Sweida city, leaving a fragile ceasefire in place.
A Syrian government source told state news agency SANA on Thursday that Damascus "categorically rejects any attempt to politicize" the Druze minority or involve it in Israeli propaganda and elections. The source neither confirmed nor denied that the call had occurred.
Since the ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria and deployed troops in a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights, as well as making incursions deeper into Syrian territory.
