Syria Druze leader Hijri calls for independent entity, says country ‘heading toward partition’
Controversial Druze spiritual leader Hikmat al-Hijri, in Syria’s southern province of Suwayda, praised Israel as the only party he said intervened to stop the killing of Druze during a wave of unrest last summer.
A prominent Druze sheikh in Syria’s southern province of Suwayda on Tuesday reiterated calls for an independent Druze entity, condemned the new Syrian authorities led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa over last summer’s violence in the province and praised Israel’s military intervention for stopping what he described as a massacre.
What did he say? In an interview published Tuesday with the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth (Ynet), Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri lashed out at Syrian authorities, accusing them of seeking to obliterate the country’s minorities.
“The previous regime also acted against us, but the current one is the most brutal. They do not want to eliminate only the Druze but any minority that is not like them,” he said.
Hijri condemned the violence that erupted in the Druze-majority province of Suwayda in July 2025, describing it as a “genocide” carried out following a decision by “Syria’s dark regime and by all the terrorist groups operating from Damascus."
