As a wave of Israeli attacks on Syrian forces rocks the fragile crust of a Middle East peace, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is trying to stop a full-scale war from erupting.
After two days of Israeli attacks on Syrian forces, Rubio said he was hopeful the attacks would stop.
“It’s complicated, obviously. These are historic, longtime rivalries between different groups in the southwest of Syria — Bedouins, the Druze community — and it led to an unfortunate situation and a misunderstanding, it looks like, between the Israeli side and the Syrian side,” Rubio said in a video posted to X.
“So we’ve been engaged with them all morning long and all night long, with both sides, and we think we’re on our way towards a real de-escalation,” he said.
“And then hopefully get back on track in helping Syria build a country and arriving at a situation there in the Middle East that’s far more stable. So, in the next few hours, we hope to see some real progress to end what you’ve been seeing over the last couple hours,” he said.
Most of Syria is Muslim, but the Druze have their own faith. Last year, after a Muslim-controlled government took power, Druze communities expressed their fears that they could become targets of the new regime, which has said it seeks to respect all faiths, and sought to be annexed by Israel, which has its own Druze communities.
On Wednesday, as Rubio spoke in Washington, Syrian and Druze leaders said they had reached a cease-fire, according to NBC. That came after Israeli air strikes hit targets in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
Announcement of the cease-fire drew skepticism from Druze leaders in Syria, according to the Times of Israel.
Hellbound and Down 