US ‘did not support Israel attacks on Syria’: Washington; Benjamin Netanyahu says Syria ceasefire ‘obtained by force’

In a near unprecedented move, the US State Department has made clear Washington’s displeasure at Israel’s attacks on Syria, as Netanyahu boasts the shaky ceasefire was ‘obtained by force’.

Syrian Druze people cross back into Syria as they walk at the Israeli border at Golan Heights. Picture: AP /Leo Correa

The United States “did not support” Israel’s recent actions in Syria and is currently engaging with both countries, the US State Department has announced, after Benjamin Netanyahu said a fragile ceasefire in Syria’s south was “obtained by force” .

As Syrian state media reported renewed Israeli strikes near the Syrian Druze-majority city of Sweida, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters Washington was actively engaging all parties in Syria to step back and engage in meaningful dialogue that would lead to a lasting ceasefire. Ms Bruce said the US was calling on Damascus to lead the way forward.

Donald Trump, who has formed an alliance with Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa, was reportedly displeased with Israel’s attacks on Syria, including its strike on the country’s military headquarters and Ministry of Defence.

But it is unusual for Washington to openly express displeasure at such a valued ally as Israel.

As the statement was released, Syria’s state-run SANA reported: “Israeli occupation aircraft carried out a raid on the outskirts of Sweida city,” after Syrian fighters had been withdrawn.

Earlier, the Israeli Prime Minister boasted in a statement that the truce was “a ceasefire obtained by force. Not by demands, not by pleas — by force.”

Mr Netanyahu insisted that Israel would continue to use military means to enforce its two red lines in Syria — the demilitarisation of the area south of Damascus, near Israel’s border, and the protection of the country’s Druze minority there.

Mr Netanyahu said Mr Sharaa’s government violated both those red lines with its recent action.

“It sent an army south of Damascus, into the area that should be demilitarised, and it began to massacre the Druze. We could not accept this in any way,” he said in a video statement.

Syrian forces withdrew from the southern province of Sweida on Thursday (local time) on the orders of the government following days of clashes with Druze militias that killed nearly 600 people.

However despite the ceasefire, Syrian media claimed the Israeli media had attacked Bedouin military positions, an accusation Israel has denied.

State media also reported that Druze militants had launched revenge attacks on communities of Sunni Bedouins, leading to a wave of displacement.

In a statement, the Syrian presidency accused “outlaw forces” of violating the agreement through “horrific violence” against civilians.

Damascus also warned against “continued blatant Israeli interference in Syria’s internal affairs, which only leads to further chaos and destruction and further complicates the regional situation”.

Bedouin clans had fought alongside government forces against the Druze groups. Druze leaders and Syrian government officials reached a ceasefire deal mediated by the United States, Turkey and Arab countries.

A Turkish official said Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and intelligence chief İbrahim Kalin held a series of diplomatic and security contacts to de-escalate the clashes. They worked with the US special envoy for Syria, Israel, and regional officials and leaders, including Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, said an official

Under the ceasefire agreement reached Wednesday, Druze factions and clerics have been appointed to maintain internal security in Sweida, Mr Sharaa said in an address.

Strikes by the Israeli Air Force have now totally destroyed the Ministry of Defense and General Staff Headquarters in the Syrian capital of Damascus. pic.twitter.com/ANa5rG4JTz

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) July 16, 2025

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 594 people had been killed in clashes in Sweida province since Sunday. The UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, said that “nearly 2,000 families have been displaced” by the violence across the province.

Israel had hammered government troops with air strikes during their brief deployment in Sweida and also struck targets in and around the capital Damascus, including the military headquarters, warning that its attacks would intensify until the government pulled back.

The Observatory reported that three people were killed in Damascus by the Israeli strikes.

Syria’s state-run news agency SANA later reported the first Israeli attack on the area since government forces withdrew, with strikes on the outskirts of Sweida.

Mr Sharaa, whose Islamist-led interim government has had troubled relations with minority groups since it toppled longtime president Bashar al-Assad in December, pledged to protect the Druze, a religious minority.

“We are keen on holding accountable those who transgressed and abused our Druze people, as they are under the protection and responsibility of the state,” said Mr Sharaa, whose Hayat Tahrir al-Sham movement was once linked to Al-Qaeda.

More than 1,700 mostly Alawite civilians were massacred in their heartland on the Mediterranean coast in March, with government-affiliated groups blamed for most of the killings.

Government forces also battled Druze fighters in Sweida and near Damascus in April and May, leaving more than 100 people dead.

Government troops had entered Sweida on Tuesday with the stated aim of overseeing a truce, following days of deadly sectarian clashes.

But witnesses said that government forces instead joined the Bedouin in attacking Druze fighters and civilians.

The Syrian president also hit out at Israel’s military intervention, saying that it would have pushed “matters to a large-scale escalation, except for the effective intervention of American, Arab and Turkish mediation, which saved the region from an unknown fate”.

The United States -- a close ally of Israel that has been trying to reboot its relationship with Syria -- said late Wednesday that an agreement had been reached to restore calm in the area, urging “all parties to deliver on the commitments they have made”.

Foreign ministers from 11 countries in the region, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, affirmed their support for the Syrian government in a joint statement released by the United Arab Emirates’ foreign ministry on Thursday.

They strongly condemned the Israeli attacks, describing them as a “blatant violation of international law and a flagrant assault on Syria’s sovereignty”, the statement said.

Israel, which has its own Druze community, has presented itself as a defender of the group, although some analysts say that is a pretext for pursuing its own military goal of keeping Syrian government forces away from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Dozens of Druze gathered in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Thursday, hoping to catch a glimpse of relatives on the Syrian-held side who might try to cross the barbed-wire frontier.

Qamar Abu Saleh, a 36-year-old educator, said that some people “opened the fence and entered, and people from Syria also started crossing here”.

“It was like a dream, and we still can’t believe it happened.”

A vehicle burns in a street after Syrian government forces pulled out of the southern Sweida governorate. Picture: AFP

AP, AFP