More than ten years after the uprising of 2011, the revolt has resumed in southern Syria. As in 2011, the mainstream media are not reporting much on it, as if popular uprisings in this region were only of interest if they coincided with the interests of the states that have been working to carve up the Middle East since the Sykes-Picot agreements in 1916. This time, the revolt started in Suwayda, the Druze governorate, in the middle of August and spread modestly to other towns, notably in the neighboring governorate of Dera’a. This text offers a contextualization on Syria in general and on Suwayda in particular. It has been written by people from the region who are concerned about the situation there, and who hope that a solution will finally be found for the people, which does not simply consist of choosing their oppressors. No foreign power can propose a viable and satisfactory solution for the Syrians, their land having served as a bloody playground for all the powers that have interfered in their affairs.

The Druze exception

The Druze are a religious community attached to a heterodox belief in Ismaili Shi’ite Islam, which originated in Egypt under the impetus of Imam Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad and Vizir Nashtakin ad-Darazi in the early 11th century. The druze religion, like Sufism, takes a philosophical and syncretic approach to faith, recognizing neither the rigorist precepts nor the prophets of Islam. Note that the Druzes prefer to call themselves Al-Muwahhidun (Unitarians) or Bani Maaruf (People of Goodness). Despite the spread of this belief to Cairo during the Fatimid caliphate of Al-Hakim, who was venerated by the Druzes, they were swiftly subjected to persecution by the rest of the Muslim community following his demise in 1021. As a result, they were exiled to Bilad el-Cham (present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine), specifically to Mount Lebanon and Hawran. However, it was around the beginning of the 19th century that the Druze community of Hawran gained strength after a large part of the community had been expelled from Mount Lebanon by the Ottoman authorities. The Hawran then took the name of Jabel al-Druze.

Today, Suwayda governorate is home to the majority of the world’s Druze community, some 700,000 people. The Lebanese Druze are the second-largest community, numbering 250,000. In Syria, several Druze settlements also exist in Jebel al-Summaq (Idlib, 25,000 people), Jebel al-Sheikh (Quneitra, 30,000 people), and Jaramana (Damascus suburbs, 50,000 people). Finally, outside Syria and Lebanon, the largest Druze communities are to be found in occupied Palestine (al-Juwlan, Galilee and Mount Karmel, 130,000), Venezuela (100,000), Jordan (20,000), North America (30,000), Colombia (3,000) and Australia (3,000).

Following numerous revolts against the Ottoman Empire until 1918, then against the French colonizers between 1925 and 1945[1], the Druze have a reputation for insubordination that describes them to this day and which has enabled them to maintain a permanent balance of power with the Assad regime, based on compromises negotiated between Druze leaders and the regime’s local representatives[2]. After 2011, despite a few sheikhs expressing their support for the regime[3], many Druzes took part in the demonstrations against Bashar al-Assad, mostly supporting the position of the «Men for Dignity»[4], who refused to take part in the war and called on the community to arm itself for the sole purpose of self-defense. The sheikhs took the lead and the initiative by refusing to join the regime’s army with the aim of protecting the region and its youth, but also to prevent the community from being compromised in Assad’s war by taking part in the repression of other communities elsewhere. This defiance of the regime was embodied, among others, by the druze sheikhs Ahmed Salman al-Hajari and Abu Fahd Wahid al-Bal’ous, who both were killed, the first in a car «accident» in March 2012[5] and the second in a bombing that killed 23 other people in September 2015.

Other prominent druze figures got involved in the opposition: Khaldoun Zeineddine, his brother Fadlallah Zeineddine and Hafez Jad Al-Kareem Faraj, all three officers in the Syrian army, from which they defected to join the rebels. Khaldoun Zeineddine formed the Sultan Pasha al-Atrash Battalion within the Free Syrian Army (FSA)[6] [7]. Joined by a number of Druzes, the battalion, however, remained weak and isolated and faced several attacks and kidnappings by Al-Nusra rebels in Dera’a[8] before being finally wiped out and its commander killed in 2013[9]. Its remaining members fled to Jordan, from where they announced the cessation of their activities in January 2014, denouncing a lack of support for the revolution from the Suwayda Military Council and from the Druze community, as well as the hostility toward the Druze on the part of the rebel groups of Dera’a, called «Islamists» and accused of being accomplices of the Assad regime[10].

Generally speaking, the Druze have a very secularist vision of society, and their religious representatives refuse to take charge of the community’s political and administrative affairs. In the conflicts that have shaken Druze and Syrian society, the sheikhs have repeatedly expressed their support and encouragement for the community’s choices[11]. While the Druze community has refused to take sides in the civil war, it has nevertheless always expressed its rejection of the regime, not hesitating to confront the security forces present in the governorate to enforce their demands or free prisoners from the hands of the army[12].

Bashar and his Islamist puppets

Right from the start of the insurrection and repeatedly since, the regime has played the divide-and-rule card, urging the Shi’a and Ismaili religious minorities (to which the Druzes belong) to oppose the FSA because of the «Islamist threat» their Sunni majority component is supposed to represent. In the propagandist rhetoric of the regime and its allies, the FSA rebels are constantly equated with the Al-Nusra Front and branded as Salafists or takfiri, while the useful idiots of the Islamic State are used in a thousand ways to hinder the revolution and to go hand in hand with the regime’s forces for the indiscriminate slaughtering of the Syrian population. In fact, the most radical religious component of the Syrian opposition has been deliberately favored by the regime: between June and October 2011, three months after the first anti-regime demonstrations, Bashar al-Assad released nearly 1,500 Islamist militants from prison, most of whom went on to join jihadist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIS. Thus, the main leaders of the Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al-Islam groups, as well as the ISIS section responsible for most of the beheading of foreigners, had previously been released from the notorious Saydnaya prison[13].

Bashar al-Assad’s strategy has paid off, as the outpouring of violence from ISIS jihadists has succeeded in permanently distracting the rest of the world’s gaze from the atrocities committed by the Syrian army, the Shabihas[14] [15] and Iran-backed militias[16], and then from the massive bombing of civilians in the north and east of the country by the Russian air force from September 2015 onwards[17], with this military intervention itself motivated by the «fight against Islamists». Moreover, it has enabled the Kurdish People’s Protection Units and Women’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) to distance themselves from the Syrian revolution and focus their forces on the fight against the Islamists, mainly with American help. Finally, because of the terror instigated by the jihadists and out of disinterest in the fate of the Syrian people and their revolution, the «international community» (EU, USA and UN) did not bring substantial support to the FSA, leaving Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to provide logistical and military support to the FSA components most compatible with their political agenda and confessional interests, so to speak «the Islamists»[18]. The democratic, secular and socialist components of the FSA, abandoned on most sides and threatened from within by the Islamists, then had no choice but to join the sectarian groups in order to survive and continue the fight against the main executioner of the Syrian people: the regime of Bashar al-Assad[19].

In May 2018, Bashar al-Assad’s regime made an agreement with ISIS for their surrender in the Damascus area[20]. Following this agreement, 800 of its fighters and their families (1,800 people) had been evacuated from the districts of Yarmouk and Tadamon (Damascus suburbs) to the desert near Palmyra and to abandoned villages northeast of Suwayda[21], with 40 trucks and cars under heavy guard by the Syrian army. Three months later, on July 25, 2018, ISIS predictably attempted to invade the Suwayda governorate from the east, guided by Bedouins who had a long-standing discord with the Druzes. At dawn, ISIS fighters thus began slaughtering the population of several druze villages on the edge of the desert[22] before taking 42 members of the community as hostages (including 16 children and 14 women[23]) and carrying out four suicide attacks in the heart of the main city of Suwayda[24]. Hundreds of Druzes from Jabal al-Druze (the region of Suwayda), joined by Druzes from Jabal al-Sheikh (located on the border with Lebanon), spontaneously took up arms and threw ISIS back into the desert, putting a stop to its campaign towards the south of the country[25] but also definitively confirming the anger and distrust of the Suwayda Druzes towards the Syrian regime, accused of using ISIS to weaken them[26].

Regime and gangs hand in hand

Although the region has escaped bombardment and military operations since 2011, the people of Suwayda, like all Syrians, have endured the consequences of the war and the regime’s murderous policies: sporadic armed confrontations with gangs and militias affiliated to the regime, assassinations, kidnappings, drug trafficking[27]…

In the spring of 2022, the gang of Raji Falhout, a notorious trafficker, claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of some twenty residents of Suwayda and Dera’a[28] before his men stormed the swimming pool in Suwayda’s al-Maqous district to kidnap its users, provoking an armed confrontation with the residents[29].

Following this incident, an uprising broke out on July 26 in the town of Shahba following the kidnapping of a resident, Jad al-Taweel, by Falhout’s gang[30]. Residents led by the «Men for Dignity» Movement blocked the roads and arrested military intelligence agents affiliated with the local organized crime[31] before taking up arms against the Falhout gang, leaving 24 people dead on the residents’ side and 12 on the gang’s side. The gang’s headquarters in the towns of Salim and Atil were then stormed by residents of numerous villages in the region, leading to the capture of the premises, the release of hostages, and the discovery of Captagon production equipments[32], revealing the Assad clan’s complicity with organized crime, using the 4th Military Intelligence Division and Hezbollah as middlemen[33]. Over the past decade, these regime-affiliated gangs have been responsible for numerous kidnappings and assassinations, causing insecurity and violence to destabilize the region.

After the eradication of the Falhout gang and its affiliated gangs, kidnapping and car theft operations in the Suwayda region significantly decreased[34], and this victory over organized crime has proven the capacity of the Druze community to ensure its own security.

Raji Falhout’s card as a member of the Intelligence Service Division n°2017.

People from Suwayda gathering to raid the Falhout gang

Captagon production

Endemic crisis and seeds of dissent

Over and above the direct consequences of the civil war, and then of the imperialist wars waged in Syria by the major powers (Iran, Russia, Turkey, Israel, the United States, Qatar, Saudi Arabia…)[35], Syria has been in an unprecedented economic slump for ten years. The population was initially subjected to rationing of basic resources and foodstuffs, such as water, gas, petrol, fuel oil, bread, sugar, oil, rice, tea and onions, obtained with the help of a ration card (the smart card), before abolishing this support for essential goods, leaving the population obliged to buy these commodities at market prices. The value of a Syrian pound has risen from $1 = 47 SYR in 2011 to 500 SYR in 2017, and climbed from 2,500 to 14,000 SYR by the summer of 2023, with an above average salary of 200,000 SYR ($14). In summer 2023, the food prices reached unprecedented level: 1L oil = 30000 SYR, 1L milk = 6000 SYP, 1kg flour = 4500 SYR, 1kg tomato = 4000 SYR, 1kg potatoes = 6500 SYR, 1kg onions = 3500 SYR, 1kg cucumber = 4000 SYR, one egg = 2000 SYP. This means that the majority of Syrians have spent their entire salary in less than a week. As for electricity, two years ago it was delivered to the Suwayda region as part of a daily rationing program (three hours on, three hours off), before this short window was reduced to an hour and a half on, versus six or seven hours off, not to mention the numerous power cuts occurring during this time, causing the rapid degradation of electronic devices whose purchase or fixing prices are unaffordable.

In recent years, Russian military police have regularly attempted to act as peacekeepers to ease tensions generated by the economic crisis. Its presence was confirmed in 2021 in Suwayda governorate, when a delegation of Russian officers presented themselves to the population with the intention of recruiting deputies from the population of both governorates[36]. The Russian contingent based in Bosra, located between Suwayda and Dera’a, made several attempts to distribute food aid in 2021 to Shahba and in 2022 to Dhibin, but residents firmly rejected their humanitarian intervention[37].

Between 2020 and 2023, spontaneous and short-lived demonstrations regularly took place in Suwayda, but were either not renewed or were repressed. In February and April 2022, protesters blocked the roads, stormed the governorate building, and set fire to a military vehicle before security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing one and injuring 18[38]. Nevertheless, in December 2022, protesters managed to storm the governorate building for the second time, while their slogans and protest signs were mainly demanding a «decent life», after the allocations of gas and electricity had been reduced. Throughout the winter and spring of 2023, rallies continued under pressure from Baath Party members actions, who attempted to organize pro-regime demonstrations in order to intimidate the protesters.

Meanwhile, the Assad regime returned to the fold of the Arab League following diplomatic meetings in Cairo on May 7, 2023, and the Arab League Summit in Riyadh on May 19[39], as well as a Chinese-brokered deal to reestablish ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia in order to defuse the proxy war these two countries are waging in Syria and Yemen[40]. In exchange for this return of favor, Bashar al-Assad committed himself to tackling drug trafficking on his borders with Jordan and Iraq[41]. The day after the Cairo agreement, Jordan sent a clear message to the Syrian authorities by carrying out an air strike on the personal home of drug trafficker Marai al-Ramthan in Al-Shaab, south of the Suwayda governorate, killing him, his wife and six children, as well as an Iran-linked (handled by Hezbollah) drug facility in Kharab al-Shahem in the nearby Dera’a governorate[42].

And the fuse caught fire…

On August 5, 2023, a collective emerged in the coastal governorates of Latakia and Tartus, issuing an ultimatum to the regime by August 10[43], demanding reforms and making public a list of demands in application of UN Security Council Resolution 2254 which was adopted in Geneva in 2015. A particular feature of the movement is that it has developed in regions with a strong Alawite community, to which Bashar al-Assad belongs, notably in the towns of Tartus, Latakia, Banias and Jableh, where thousands of leaflets have been distributed[44]. In response, Bashar al-Assad raised civil employees’ salaries by 100% but simultaneously announced the abolition of petrol subsidies and an increase in fuel prices, with the price of a liter of petrol rising sharply from 3,000 to 8,000 Syrian pounds, an increase of 167%, and the price of fuel from 700 to 2,000 Syrian pounds, an increase of 186%. Syrians’ exorbitant transport budgets are making daily life impossible and forcing thousands of Syrians to stop going to work. Faced with the rise in resignations in the public sector, the regime has responded by tightening the conditions of resignation. Meanwhile, the regime has announced its intention to abolish subsidies on all consumer goods by 2024[45].

In the wake of these announcements, a call for a general strike was issued in southern Syria[46]. Since August 16, more than 52 communes in southern Syria have witnessed demonstrations using various types of action: strikes, vigils, blocking roads, closing government institutions, etc.

Demonstrations of support took place in the governorates of Idlib, Dera’a and Aleppo, as well as in Jaramana, the predominantly Druze district of Rural Damascus, reviving the slogans of 2011 for the fall of Assad : «Syria is ours, not Assad’s», «one, one, one, the Syrian people are one» and «the people want the fall of the regime». The demonstrators also expressed their wish to see an end to the Iranian presence in Syria.

On August 25, demonstrations spreaded to Idleb, Aleppo, Azaz, Afrin and Al-Bab. In several places, demonstrators waved the Druze, Kurdish and Syrian Revolution flags together. While the regime’s forces did not overreact in Suwayda governorate, they did open fire in Aleppo and Dera’a, killing at least two people. The Syrian Human Rights Network also reports the arrest of 57 people in connection with the protests, mainly in the governorate of Lattakia et Tartus[47].

Protesters show Syrian Revolution, Kurdish, Shia, Druze, Sunni, Christian and Syrian national flags in the city of Suwayda.

Since then demonstrations in Suwayda’s central square, long since renamed «Dignity Square» (al-Karami) by the population, have been weekly, if not daily, and have grown from one Friday to the next, reaching several thousand people a month after the start of the revolt, on September 22. Baath Party offices and a number of government offices were closed by the demonstrators during the protests, while banners and portraits of Bashar al-Assad were destroyed and burned.

Meanwhile, on September 14, Bashar al-Assad’s cousin, Firas al-Assad[48], published a video in which he condemned the regime and expressed his support for the demonstrators[49]. This video follows that of Majd Jadaan, Maher al-Assad’s sister-in-law[50], fiercely denouncing the crimes of the Assad clan from Jordan and hailing the revolt of the people of Suwayda against the regime[51]. Interviews of actors of the revolt were also made public, such as that of the leader of the «Men of Dignity Movement» in Suwayda, Sheikh Abu Hassan Yahya Al-Hajjar[52], or the activist and lawyer Adel al-Hadi[53].

The governorate building with Hafez al-Assad’s picture set in flames.

In the chaos of the proxy war

Despite twelve years of revolt and civil war, the Syrian regime is still in power. If it has withstood the storms, it is undoubtedly thanks to the interventions of Iran, ISIS and Russia, each of which, in their own ways, helped to make the Revolution so desired by the Syrian people impossible. To this we can add Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, who for their part have succeeded in creating division within the democratic and secular forces of the Free Syrian Army by favoring, as mentioned earlier, the most reactionary and least democratic forces of the rebellion against the regime.

The United States, for its part, which is responsible for the birth and development of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, both born on the still-smoldering rubble of Afghan and Iraqi societies, chose in 2011 (the year of its official withdrawal from Iraq) to no longer participate directly with its armed forces in conflicts in the Middle East. For all that, after condemning the repression of the 2011 protests and imposing sanctions against the Assad regime, the United States launched its first air strikes in Syria in September 2014[54] and, from 2015, sponsored the new Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), made up of 25,000 Kurdish fighters from the YPG/YPJ and 5,000 Arab fighters, with the stated aim of halting the advance of the Islamic State. Initially spared, the Syrian regime finally underwent US strikes in 2017 and 2018, in retaliation for the Syrian army’s use of chemical weapons against civilians in Douma (Damascus) and Khan Cheikhoun (Idlib)[55]. That same year, two-thirds of the American troops deployed on Syrian soil were brought back in agreement with Turkey, which then decided to launch an offensive in the Kurdish-controlled border zone in order to establish a «security zone» there[56]. Nevertheless, the United States maintained a strong presence in Syria; in 2021, it carried out a series of air strikes against Hezbollah and its Iraqi allies, including Hachd al-Chaabi, who were held responsible for attacks against «western interests» in Iraq[57].

Russia, which has been one of the Syrian regime’s main military backers since 2015, was diverted by its invasion of Ukraine, which didn’t go exactly as Putin would have liked. It had to withdraw a significant part of its contingent from Syrian territory[58] to redeploy it in eastern Ukraine, while the 250 to 450 Wagner mercenaries operating notably in the Syrian governorates of Homs and Deir ez-Zor, remaining without leadership since the Prigozhine mutiny, were reportedly ordered to report to their base in Hmeimim (Latakia governorate) and return to the authority of the Russian military command[59]. Some of those who refused were possibly sent back to Russia or redeployed to Mali. As a result of the withdrawal of Russian troops, some of the military bases under their control were transferred to the Iranian armed forces, notably the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah. However, Russia retains its military forces in Syria and has no intention of relinquishing its share of influence in the region, particularly in the face of Iran, which remains its main competitor there.

Iran, which has been the primary supporter of the Assad regime since the reign of Bashar’s father, Hafez, remains the key player in the Syrian war. Without the military support of Iranian militias, the main one being the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Assad regime would probably not have been able to hold out, not least because of Hezbollah’s involvement in the trafficking of Captagon, one of the regime’s main resources. After denying their presence in Syria, the Iranian regime and Hezbollah ended up openly supporting the Assad regime, calling it both a «jihad against Sunni extremists» and a «necessary intervention to protect Palestine and resist Israel». In the propaganda of Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah, unconditional support for the liberation of the Palestinian people is a mirage that works well, particularly among the Western left[60]. Where one might have expected unanimous support for the Syrian revolution from the majority of revolutionary left-wing forces, a resounding silence responded to the chants of the Syrian demonstrators. In the naive imagination of the left, Iran, Syria and the Hezbollah (and Hamas) militias constitute an indisputable bulwark against American imperialism and Israeli colonialism. In reality, Hezbollah’s main concern is to maintain its quasi-hegemonic hold on Lebanese society while working frantically to keep Syria within Iran’s zone of influence, on which its entire survival depends. Between 2013 and 2018, the Syrian regime’s siege[61] and then violent eradication of the world’s largest Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp (suburb of Damascus)[62], which can easily be considered an operation of ethnic cleansing carried out with the complicity of Hezbollah and Palestinian movements like PFLP and Hamas[63], is enough to disqualify the latter’s propaganda as to the reality of their struggle for the emancipation of the Palestinian people.

Israel, without intervening militarily on Syrian soil, has never stopped launching drone strikes on Iranian infrastructures in Syria. In fact, not a month goes by without rockets hitting Hezbollah buildings or executives, the militia being the main concern of the Israeli regime. Yet, Israel has never shown any willingness to support the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people. If we look at the situation rationally, we understand that Israel has no interest in the establishment of a democratic society in an Arab country on its borders, as any democratic progress in the region would naturally lead to Arab solidarity with the Palestinians and a threat to Israel’s apartheid regime. In fact, the Assad regime and Hezbollah have largely contributed to restricting the political organization and resistance of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Syria[64], which is not to Israel’s displeasure.

What could happen next?

Like the Syrian people as a whole in 2011, the Suwayda demonstrators can hardly win a revolution without external support or a large uprising of the Syrian population in the main other governorates.

As for the Free Syrian Army, it’s hard to expect enthusiastic support for the Druze uprising, given that the aspiration of the majority of the current fighting groups remains the establishment of an Islamic caliphate that is difficult to reconcile with the democratic and secular aspirations of the Suwayda protesters. Nevertheless, in all the governorates, whether under the control of the regime or the rebels, there are still remnants of democratic movements who see the Druze insurrection as an immense source of hope. This is why those who still believe in a non-confessional, democratic society have spontaneously taken to the streets of various towns to express their solidarity with Suwayda, whether they be Sunni Muslims, Alawites, Christians, Syriacs, Arabs or Kurds.

Here again, one would expect Kurdish organizations, which have managed to maintain their autonomous status in a good quarter of the country and proclaim loud and clear that they are driven by a revolutionary, universalist and democratic project, to express more strong and unconditional support for their brothers and sisters in Suwayda. But beyond a communiqué from the women of the Syrian Democratic Council calling for Syrian women to take the political issue into their own hands, we haven’t heard much from the Kurdish revolutionary movements. This suggests that, in accordance to their well-established autonomy, the Kurds don’t feel much concern for what’s happening south of the Euphrates, whether the fate of the rest of the Syrian people or that of the Palestinians. It’s sad to see the extent to which solidarity with other struggling communities is not perceived as a sine qua non for the survival of the project for Democracy in the Middle East. Moreover, recent events in Deir ez-Zor have done little to bolster Arab confidence in the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG): between August 27 and September 7, the Syrian Democratic Forces, largely dominated by the YPG, clashed with local Arab factions affiliated to the Deir ez-Zor Military Council following the dismissal and arrest of an Arab senior commander of the SDF, Ahmed al-Khubail also know as Rashid Abu Khawla. Although the sanctions taken against him were justified in view of the accusations of corruption and drug trafficking made against him by the local population, the arrest fueled the anger of its supporters, who launched an assault on the SDF, resulting in the death of 90 people over the eleven days the fighting lasted[65]. The backdrop to this conflict is the reproach levelled at the Kurds by the local population, who legitimately blame them for their hegemonic control of the area, which is seen as disrespectful considering the Arab majority living there[66].

Among the Druze, there is intense debate about the procedure to be followed. A certain mistrust seems to persist with regard to the autonomist and confederalist proposal. Some people see in the autonomist claim a risk of separation from the rest of the Syrians, unable to grasp the difference between autonomy and independence, while others confuse the means with the end: when they are told about establishing democratic assemblies and struggle committees to organize the revolt in the medium term, they think they are being told about a long-term project for society, and find it hard to believe in the people’s capacity for self-organization without mediators and leaders. As a result, political organization in the context of the popular uprising in al-Karami Square is still struggling to take on the form of the Egyptian Tahrir of 2010 or the Ukrainian Maïdan of 2014, when it would perhaps be sufficient to take up the recipes and positive experiences of the 2011 uprising, and in particular that of the Local Committees described by the Syrian anarchist Omar Aziz[67] and set up in many cities at the time. Unfortunately, if no grassroots’ organizing initiative is put in place, we run the risk of seeing sheikhs and heads of traditional family clans propelled as leaders, to the detriment of lesser-known individuals or collectives driven by more progressive and genuinely emancipatory ideals.

Already, Russian ambassador Anatoly Viktorov has paid a visit to the sheikh of the Druze of Galilee (Israel) Muwafaq Tarif[68], while American representatives French Hill, Joe Wilson and Brendan Boyle have called on phone the sheikh of Suwayda Hikmat Al-Hijri[69], trying to initiate negotiations with the Druze community to ensure that the outcome of the revolt would be in line with their interests in the region. Nor should we doubt that Saudi butcher Mohammed Ben Salman, who is conducting diplomatic dealings on all sides with Iran, China, Israel, the United States and France, will also come to shake up the region’s future, so much does his interest in weaponry acquisition and uranium enrichment outweigh the fate of the people, whether Syrian or Palestinian. For the Saudi tyrant, it obviously doesn’t matter that these peoples remain caged, as long as they are martyred in silence and don’t disturb usual business. And that’s not counting Bashar al-Assad’s recent visit to Beijing at the invitation of Chinese despot Xi Jinping, to break out of his isolation and secure China’s support for a deal to «rebuild» Syria. The very act of all these vultures is enough to generate suspicion and speculation, which cannot be beneficial to the popular movement underway. In view of the chaos that the various states have generated in Iraq and Syria over the last twenty years, we can legitimately say that only solutions implemented by the people for the people can hope to lead to a semblance of peace and democracy. For now, the people of Suwayda have categorically refused to join under any banner that has political or economic interests in Syria.

Let’s hope it will last and succeed in this way!

NOTES

[1] The withdrawal of the French in 1945 was largely due to the fight for independence waged since the 1920s by Sultan Pacha al-Atrach, representing a family of Druze notables, whose feats of arms and resistance to the occupiers are still celebrated by many Syrians.

[2] The regime has no checkpoints inside Suwayda governorate, and the community refuses to send its young people to the army outside the region. Nevertheless, the governorate administration and security services remain present and informed of what is happening in the region.

[3] Among these sheikhs, the notorious ones are the sheikh Jerbo and Nayef al-Aqil from the Dir’ al-Watan faction.

[4] https://yalibnan.com/2012/03/25/anti-regime-druze-spiritual-leader-killed-in-syria/

[5] https://www.meforum.org/5554/the-assassination-of-sheikh-abu-fahad-al-balous

[6] https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/22/druze-syria-assad-israel-netanyahu/

[7] https://syrianobserver.com/news/34453/sedition_between_druze_and_sunni_fighters.html

[8] https://www.meforum.org/3463/syrian-druze-neutrality

[9] https://www.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/45392

[10] https://www.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/45392 (AR)

[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8HeEzKTmbc (EN)

[12] https://suwayda24.com/?p=20610 (AR)

[13] https://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/isis-jihad-syria-assad-islamic/ (EN)

[14] https://npasyria.com/en/53834/ (EN)

[15] https://cija-syria-paramilitaries.org/#investigating-assads-ghosts (EN)

[16] https://syriafreedomforever.wordpress.com/2017/02/26/the-rawr-report-interview-with-joseph-daher-on-hezbollah-and-the-syrian-revolution-02162017/ (EN)

[17] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/9/30/russia-carries-out-first-air-strikes-in-syria

[18] The main are Ahrar al-Sham (Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia), Syrian Islamic Liberation Front (Qatar, Turkey), Liwa al-Tawhid (Qatar, Turkey), Jaych al-Islam (Saudi Arabia, Qatar)

[19] https://thisishell.com/interviews/894-leila-al-shami-robin-yassin-kassab (EN)

[20] https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/1275206/isis-militants-evacuated-southern-damascus-desert (EN)

[21] Hamlets called Ashraffieh, al-Saqiya and al-Awara, less than 20 kilometers from the Khalkhalah military base and less than 10 kilometers from the first Druze settlements at the gateway to the desert, al-Qasr and Barek – https://suwayda24.com/?p=2423 (AR)

[22] Villages of Tema, Douma, Al-Kseib, Tarba, Ghaydah Hamayel, Rami, al-Shbeki, al-Sharahi, al-Mtouneh and al-Sweimreh – https://suwayda24.com/?p=4431

[23] On July 31, 2018, the regime negotiated the release of women held hostage by the jihadists, in exchange for an agreement to evacuate more than 200 of their fighters from western Deraa (Yarmouk Basin) to the Badiya region. Refusing the deal, the Islamic State demanded a ransom, before publishing the video of the execution of one of the hostages, Muhannad Touqan Abu Ammar, a 19-year-old Druze resident of al-Shbeki, on August 2, 2018 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_OhL8bJD2M (AR). Eventually, the remaining hostages were released following agreements reached with the regime in october and november 2018, while 700 to 1,000 jihadists were evacuated to Badiya under a new agreement reached with the regime on November 17 – https://suwayda24.com/?p=19606 (AR) ; https://stj-sy.org/en/946/ (EN)

[24] https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/08/25/syria-isis-holding-children-hostage (EN)

[25] The ISIS offensive affected 10 villages, 263 people were killed (30 by the suicide bombers in Suwayda) and 300 injured. In retaliation for the massacre, on August 7, 2018 local members of the pro-regime Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) hanged an elderly man they presented as a jihadist at the so-called “Arch of the Hanged” (al-Mashnaqah) in the town of Suwayda – https://suwayda24.com/?p=4711 (AR) ; https://syria.news/179bd6d3-07081812.html (AR) ; https://orient-news.net/ar/news_show/152458 (AR)

[26] The regime’s army intervened only belatedly (after the attack on the Khalkhalah military base located to the north of Suwayda governorate) to track down ISIS into the desert next to the volcanic field of as-Safa, as they were already pushed back by the Druzes’ counter-attack.

[27] Watch “Captagon: Inside Syria’s drug trafficking empire” by BBC World Service Documentaries – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4DaOxf13O0 (EN)

[28] https://www.facebook.com/Suwayda24/photos/pb.100064794576009.-2207520000/2097785973734342/?type=3

[29] https://suwayda24.com/?p=19288 (AR)

[30] https://suwayda24.com/?p=19589 (AR) ; https://suwayda24.com/?p=19611 (AR)

[31] https://www.opensanctions.org/entities/NK-Do5hgZ5JS8hTfGJbyQvr6J/ (EN)

[32] https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2161930727319866&set=pb.100064794576009.-2207520000

[33] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-66002450 (EN)

[34] https://suwayda24.com/?p=19955 (AR)

[35] Since 2011, over 600,000 people have been killed in the conflict, more than half of them civilians. Five million Syrians have left the country, while almost 8 million have been internally displaced. While Russia and Turkey intervene militarily on Syrian territory, most other powers intervene through militias or by providing financial and material aid to the various armed groups active in the conflict. Iran openly supports the Syrian regime, notably by guaranteeing the support of its militias, the main one being Hezbollah.

[36] https://npasyria.com/en/65789/ (EN)

[37] https://syrianobserver.com/news/75404/widely-condemned-russian-delegation-enters-town-in-suweida-under-pretext-of-aid.html (EN)

[38] https://suwayda24.com/?p=20325 (AR)

[39] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/7/arab-league-agrees-to-bring-syria-back-into-its-fold (EN)

[40] https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/03/what-you-need-know-about-chinas-saudi-iran-deal (EN)

[41] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/1/syria-agrees-to-curb-drug-trade-in-arab-ministers-meeting (EN)

[42] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/8/sohr-attack-that-killed-drug-trafficker-in-syria-was-by-jordan (EN)

[43] https://www.newarab.com/news/who-are-syrias-new-opposition-group-10-august-movement (EN)

[44] https://en.majalla.com/node/297431/politics/alawite-protest-movement-emerging-syrias-coastal-areas (EN)

[45] https://alsifr.org/syria-protests (AR)

[46] https://suwayda24.com/?p=21730 (AR) ; https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/21/strike-protests-in-syrias-sweida-enter-second-day (EN)

[47] https://leilashami.wordpress.com/2023/08/26/revolution-reborn/ (EN)

[48] Firas’ father, Rifaat, commanded the armed forces responsible for the Hama massacre in 1982, before attempting a coup against his brother, Bashar al-Assad’s father, in 1984. Exiled to France, he finally returned to Syria in 2021 after being granted an amnesty by his nefew and found guilty by French courts of embezzling and laundering money for the Syrian regime. All his assets were seized, worth an estimated 90 million euros, including two Parisian townhouses, a stud farm, 40 apartments, 7300 square metres of office space in Lyon and a castle.

[49] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmCRl-Hkn94 (AR)

[50] Maher is Bashar’s brother and General commander of the Republican Guard and the regime’s Military Intelligence. He is the regime’s second strongman, directly responsible for the Shabihas militia and the captagon traffic organized by the military intelligence services, in particular the Fourth Armored Division.

[51] https://youtu.be/IobX1vxHkDY (AR)

[52] https://suwayda24.com/?p=20610 (AR)

[53] https://hawarnews.com/en/haber/developments-in-as-suwayda-to-where-h37625.html (EN)

[54] https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/23/statement-president-airstrikes-syria (EN)

[55] https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Timeline-of-Syrian-Chemical-Weapons-Activity (EN) ; https://www.opcw.org/media-centre/news/2023/01/opcw-releases-third-report-investigation-and-identification-team (EN)

[56] https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/fff9400a-a0b3-4ff4-be05-e18d00a046cf (EN)

[57] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-carries-out-air-strikes-against-iran-backed-militia-iraq-syria-2021-06-27/ (EN)

[58] By 2020, Russia had control over 75 sites in Syria, including 23 military bases, 42 points of presence and 10 observation points. While an estimated 63,000 Russian military personnel were deployed in Syria between 2015 and 2018, on the eve of the war in Ukraine this number appears to have fallen to 20,000 – https://daraj.media/108925/ (AR) ; https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/russian-forces-in-syria-and-the-building-of-a-sustainable-military-presence-i/ (EN)

[59] The main Russian military bases in Syria are located in Tartus, Hmeimim (Latakia) and since 2019 in Qamishli (Al-Hasakah).

[60] https://alsifr.org/syria-protests (AR)

[61] See the film “Little Palestine”, by Abdallah al-Khatib – https://youtu.be/GbpxMFNuYVY (AR / FR)

[62] Before 2013, the Yarmouk camp was home to over 160,000 Palestinian refugees.

[63] Hamas militants in Yarmouk initially fought the Assad regime until 2013, when Hamas timidly criticized the intervention against the Yarmouk camp, before maintaining a position of neutrality, due to its financial and military dependence on Hezbollah. Hamas also maintains its headquarters in Hezbollah’s stronghold in Dahiyeh, Lebanon.

[64] https://alsifr.org/syria-protests (AR)

[65] It was finally under US pressure that a withdrawal and ceasefire agreement was initiated by the FDS, motivated by the fear that ISIS cells, regime forces and pro-Iranian militias would take advantage of the situation to regain ground in the region.

[66] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/syria-deir-ezzor-sdf-fights-arab-tribes-control (EN)

[67] https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/397-winter-2017/the-legacy-of-omar-aziz/ (EN) ; https://www.syria.tv/عمر-عزيز-يدخل-غيابه-العاشر

[68] https://www.aljazeera.net/politics/2023/9/21/انتفاضة-السويداء-مستمرة-اتصالات

[69] https://syrianobserver.com/news/85155/american-senator-reaches-out-to-sheikh-al-hijri-in-suweida.html (EN) ; https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/us-news/2023/09/21/us-politicians-speak-to-druze-leader-sheikh-al-hajari-as-anti-assad-protests-continue/ (EN)

Since Friday, at first timidly and then with growing fervor, the population has once again dared to defy the authorities, taking to the streets and chanting the refrain that so infuriated the idiot who has served as Syria’s president for far too long: “Yalla irhal ya Bashar!”

“Jay alek el door ya doctor”

In 2011, it all began when schoolchildren in Deraa (in the far south of Syria), inspired by the uprisings in other Arab countries, dared to dream of the tyrant of Damascus stepping down—Bashar al-Assad. Ironical slogans blossomed on the city’s walls, among them the one that enraged the president most: “Jay alek el door ya doctor” (“Your turn is coming, doctor”—Bashar al-Assad is an ophthalmologist).

Arrested and tortured by Bashar’s henchmen, the children of Deraa unwittingly ignited one of the most beautiful moments of revolt the country had ever known. Across Syria, massive demonstrations erupted. We remember the magnificent messages of hope sent week after week to the entire world by the residents of Kafranbel, barely an hour from Idlib—now the heart of the cyclone, bombarded daily by tons of explosives stamped with the seal of Russian and Western merchants of death.

We remember thousands of people dancing in the glare of floodlights to defy the curfew, and we can still hear ringing in our ears the chants launched by the two birds of the revolution, Ibrahim Qachouch and Abdel-Basset al-Sarout: “Yalla irhal ya Bashar” (“Come on, get out, Bashar”).

The fate of these two men encapsulates what followed. The first was arrested and tortured as early as 2011 by Bashar’s mukhabarat (intelligence services) and shabiha (henchmen), his vocal cords torn out. The second died in June 2019 from his wounds after fighting alongside rebels in the Hama region. Bashar’s torturers also crushed the hands of the cartoonist Ali Ferzat before leaving him for dead by the side of a road.

The revolt of 2011 was annihilated in terror and blood. Images—such as the 45,000 photographs taken by the photographer Caesar and smuggled to Europe by this former regime soldier turned defector—laid bare the regime’s barbarity for the world to see. The uprising fell silent, and those who chose armed struggle continue to be crushed beneath bombs in the north of the country. Many joined Islamist groups, while the least sectarian and most selfless, completely isolated, no longer interest anyone.

With the crushing of the Islamic State (a victory made possible by the armed intervention of the Kurds in the north and the Druze in the south), followed by the Turkish offensive, the ceasefire and joint Turkish-Russian patrols, the pawns placed here and there by the United States and Europe (through NGOs and agreements imposed on the Kurds), and the quiet invasion of Syrian territory by Russian forces and Hezbollah (with Bashar’s consent—perhaps believing this would secure his power and safety), Damascus now seems isolated at the center of a vast country where the president, with his small empty head perched on a long neck, controls very little anymore.

What has fundamentally changed is that he no longer enjoys the same footing as before. For several weeks now, a fratricidal conflict has pitted him against his cousin Rami Makhlouf, and everywhere the Russians occupy the territory—including Kurdish regions—as if they were slowly preparing to take full control of the country. And stubbornly, Bashar continues to flatten the north under bombs, as though his power still depended on it.

“Yalla irhal ya Bashar!”

But in 2020, the combination of international sanctions and the pandemic brought an end to years of resignation and fear: Syrians are starving.

Since the beginning of the year, the Syrian pound has suffered an unprecedented collapse. From 500 pounds per dollar in January 2020, the exchange rate passed the 3,000-pound mark on June 8. In one year, the currency lost 130 percent of its value. The price of onions rose by 97 percent in two months; lentils by 64 percent; bread by 54 percent; flour by 46 percent; pasta by 44 percent; and rice by 33 percent. With an average salary of 30,000 pounds and a family meal costing between 3,000 and 5,000 pounds for a typical household (two or three children), a full month’s wage barely covers food for ten days at the rate of one meal per day. Some families can no longer even afford olive oil or tea. Grocers now choose to open only a few hours a day, unsure what prices to charge as the dollar climbs by 200 Syrian pounds daily. Banks are beginning to shut down their ATMs.

Since Friday, at first timidly and then with growing fervor, the population has once again dared to defy the authorities, taking to the streets and chanting the refrain that so infuriated the idiot who has served as Syria’s president for far too long: “Yalla irhal ya Bashar!”

Those who, in their cynicism and indifference, would like to see the Islamic State wiped out and Syrian refugees return home by the grace of the Holy Spirit or by sheer brute force should understand this: the balance of the world depends on the fall of regimes steeped in virile authoritarianism and greed, wherever they may be found. The threat does not come from popular uprisings or exile, but from elites who believe human beings can be moved about like pawns on a black-and-white chessboard.

As the world enters a period of unprecedented upheaval, as systemic racism and authoritarianism are on everyone’s lips, we invite the world to take up once more the chant of the Syrian revolt—to finally bring down all the useful idiots of the system who pass themselves off as our leaders.

The liberation of peoples rhymes with the end of capitalism (and its imperialism).

Insurrection can only be global, carried by the people, for the people.

We express our full solidarity with the Syrian people.

At the end of June 2014, I traveled to Palestine for the second time, less than nine months after having to interrupt my previous trip to see my father before he died. Little did I know that just a few days after my arrival, a new war would break out. Here is my account.

I’ve barely arrived and the war begins.

Traffic jams and clashes in Qalandiya

Qalandiya—known to everyone for its checkpoint, the wall plastered with Barghouti’s portrait, and the charred watchtower—is the main crossing point between Jerusalem and the West Bank and, above all, a symbolic site that embodies the humiliation of controls, apartheid‑like restrictions, and the inability of many Palestinians to leave their own territory. In Arabic it is called hajez. Israelis control everything that passes into Israel there.

Qalandiya is also something of a knot at the heart of Palestine. Directly below the checkpoint stretches the refugee camp, and between the two runs Route 60, which links Jalame (north of Jenin) and Meitar (south of Hebron), the two checkpoints that bookend the West Bank. It is a bottleneck that rarely clears: cars crawl forward, honk, turn around, and seem to overlap each other in an almost suffocating jam. White and green buses may cross into Israel, as can vehicles bearing yellow Israeli plates. All others—yellow “services” and cars with the green‑white Palestinian plates—must stay within the West Bank. Like all Palestinians without Israeli residency permits, they are barred from their own land.

Young men, armed and exuding a swaggering contempt, carry out the security formalities. Passports and visas, Palestinian ID cards, and residence permits are mandatory. Pedestrians pass through grids that resemble cattle‑holding corridors. Turnstiles constantly jam, opening only at the whim of the adolescent‑looking soldier conducting the checks, while queues can stretch indefinitely. Above each turnstile sit two lights—a red and a green—but a green light does not necessarily mean the gate is open. The endless cycle repeats: you pass, you pass again, you set your bag on the scanner and press your passport against the armored glass. Changing buses costs five shekels; a bus ride from Ramallah to Jerusalem (Damascus Gate) is eight shekels.

Over the checkpoint stand three of those familiar watchtowers that punctuate the Palestinian landscape. The one overlooking the entrance to the refugee camp is blackened with soot. Tires were set ablaze at its base during clashes that, in that spot, occur weekly—and, since the death of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, daily. During Ramadan they usually begin after Iftar, the evening meal that breaks the fast.

I found myself caught in one of those confrontations on my way to Shu’afat. At moments the soldiers moved close to the Palestinians to launch stun grenades, or hid behind barrels on the left sidewalk to fire live rounds. A sniper crouched behind a blue water tank, adjusted his aim, and fired repeatedly—whistling and a faint metallic crack. On the Palestinian side there were about forty people armed with stones and slingshots—the inverted myth of David versus Goliath, minus the victory. In the end, two Palestinians were wounded by gunfire.

Taking advantage of a lull, I slipped away to rejoin the road to Shu’afat…

East Jerusalem rises up following the death of Mohammed Abu Khdeir

After the kidnapping of three young Gush Ezion settlers, Israel’s government—ever quick to blame Hamas—still could not locate Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Frankel or Gilad Shaer alive. The Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security service) now has to admit its failure. The three were found dead in Halhul, north of Hebron, and buried in Modiin on July 1.

The discovery ignited a wave of fury. Within 24 hours, hundreds of extremists flooded the internet with calls for the murder and genocide of Arabs, despite the victims’ parents urging restraint and reminding skeptics that “the same blood runs in the veins of Arabs and Jews.”

On the dawn of Wednesday, 16‑year‑old Mohammed Abu Khdeir was seized by three men outside a shop in Shu’afat. His charred body was later recovered in a nearby forest; the autopsy showed he had been burned alive after being beaten. The next three days saw Shu’afat and several East‑Jerusalem neighborhoods—Beit Hanina, at‑Tour, Silwan, Ras al‑‘Amoud and al‑Eesawiyya—rise in protest.

July 4, the first Friday of Ramadan, was marked by massive funeral rites for Mohammed in Shu’afat, drawing more than 10 000 mourners. Israel barred the ceremony from Al‑Aqsa Mosque, which for weeks had endured violent incursions by Israeli fanatics accompanied by soldiers.

That night, roughly 200 demonstrators clashed with Israeli special forces at the Beit Hanina–Shu’afat junction. Molotov cocktails, stones, rubber‑bullet fire, tear‑gas grenades and water cannons were exchanged. Unlike the earlier episode at Qalandiya, where a sniper perched behind a water tank appeared ready to add another name to the growing list of Palestinian martyrs, the special forces reportedly refrained from using live ammunition.

The Veolia‑Alstom tram line was not spared. Protesters cut the tracks and toppled two poles on the line that connects Jerusalem to the illegal settlements of Giv’at‑Ha Mivtar, Pisgat Ze’ev and Neve Ya’akov, depriving more than 50 000 settlers of tram service. Simultaneously, incidents multiplied across the West Bank: army raids and skirmishes in the Old City of Hebron, the Al‑Arroub refugee camp (Hebron district), the villages of Barta’a ash‑Sharqiyya (Jenin district), Al‑Asakra, Jouret ash‑Sham’a and Um Salmouna (Bethlehem district), leading to further abductions.

From the settler side, new violent episodes were reported: in Osarin (Nablus district), 22‑year‑old Tareq Ziad Odeily was seized by two Israeli vehicles, beaten and left for dead near a field; in Keesan (Bethlehem district), 17‑year‑old Ala’ Mousa Obeyyat was deliberately run over by a settler’s car; and in Sha’aba (Hebron area), 30‑year‑old Bashir Sobhi al‑Mohtaseb was beaten by a group of Kiryat Arba settlers.

A conversation with a group of young Karmi Zur settlers camping outside Halhul revealed once again how misinformation and hatred shape their worldview, prompting them to see every Arab as a butcher and terrorist. Their interaction with me was surprisingly cordial—they even offered chocolate. During our talk I heard them claim that Palestinians have no reason to complain because Israel “generously gave them the Gaza Strip—now full of luxury hotels—and provides water and electricity for free.” They also asserted that Arabs are educated from childhood to kill Jews and that the proportion of fanatics in Israel is infinitesimal. The settlers believe they alone live in fear and view each new settlement as a way to further bind Jews in the occupied territories for protection against Arab aggression. They do not even recognize the label “settlers” applied to them.

When they invited me to wait for a gathering that would be guarded by soldiers for our safety, I declined. I preferred to leave before engaging in any deeper debate with the Israeli forces, opting instead to spend the early evening on a bus packed with “dangerous Palestinians” on my way back to Ramallah.

Mounir Ahmad Al Badareen: a dove has fallen

July 14, pre‑dawn – Between four and five a.m. in the village of As Samuʾ (Hebron district), Israeli army jeeps rolled into the town.

Violent clashes erupted when residents tried to drive the intruders away, pursuing them to the edge of Route 60 at the western tip of the village. The road slices the hill there like an open wound in the landscape, linking the settlements of Otni’el and Shim’a before continuing toward Beersheba beyond the “wall of shame.”

Mounir Ahmad Al‑Badareen, 19, was among those who attempted to resist with stones. Stones against rifles—​the drama and tragedy of an unarmed youth risking his life daily to shake off oppression.

Palestinian projectiles ricocheted down the road; their impact marks were still visible two days later. The youngsters were exposed, standing too close to the road’s lip. A soldier fired two .22 calibre dum‑dum rounds—​ammunition banned under the Hague Declaration of 1899 and prohibited in 2001 for crowd control by the Israeli army’s chief legal officer—​into Mounir’s torso. His friends fled.

Witnesses later described the routine brutality of the adolescent soldiers, who mishandled Mounir’s wounded body and blocked a Red Crescent ambulance from reaching him while his blood drained away. It took forty minutes for him to become a shaheed, a martyr for a desperate cause.

The following day, Ahmad Hamdan Al‑Badareen, an English teacher and Mounir’s father, spoke with humility about his son’s fate. He shared his broader view of the Israeli occupation and his unconditional wish for a just peace—​a vision far removed from the revenge narrative often ascribed to Palestinians. In his view, a fair peace can exist only when walls fall: “No peace without freedom; no freedom without struggle.” The father and the slain son’s memory seemed to converge on that sentiment.

That evening, Mounir’s family welcomed me into their home as if I were one of their own, despite our differences and their grief. Sitting among them in the communal hall, I witnessed a ceremony attended by hundreds of locals and outsiders who came to offer condolences.

Mounir kept a pigeon loft. By killing him, the Israeli soldiers struck at a symbol of freedom itself.

The Palestinian Authority at the service of the settler

Israel appears able to lean on the Palestinian Authority to suppress any spark of popular revolt. Historically, the Palestinian people have been split between those who see a necessary uprising as inevitable and those who cling to the hope of a peace brokered through diplomacy—even at the cost of unbearable compromises. It seems that the prospect of securing crumbs from endless negotiations with the White House motivates Mahmoud Abbas to polish the shoes of the Israeli colonial state.

Fatah’s strategy since Yasser Arafat’s death has shifted dramatically. The comfortable Palestinian elite now seems to have nothing to gain from armed struggle and prefers pacification and compromise. This collaboration between the Palestinian bourgeoisie and the occupier, once again, appears to be a prerequisite for the creation of a new state.

While the Israeli army multiplies operations aimed at decapitating Hamas in the West Bank—carrying out arbitrary nighttime arrests across cities and villages in the occupied territories—the Palestinian Authority assists the occupier in its effort to choke resistance.

Since the beginning of the week, wherever Palestinian youth traditionally take up arms against the occupation, the Palestinian police have intervened to prevent conflict, forcibly interposing themselves between protesting civilians and Israeli soldiers.

That is exactly what happened last night in Al Bireh, when Palestinian anti‑riot forces blocked the road leading to the settlement‑garrison of Beit El, and similarly in Qalandiya, where the Authority’s police took over from the Israeli army to violently suppress rioters.

Following the sniper‑kill of Mahmoud Ismael Atallah in central Ramallah on 22 June, the Palestinian police opted for repression, quashing any uprising in the city. That intervention culminated in an attack on the police station by residents. Palestinians are not fooled.

What does the Palestinian Authority hope to achieve? If Abbas pushes collaboration with Israel as far as he wishes, no peace will ever be acceptable without the dismantling of all West Bank settlements, the implementation of the right of return for refugees, unrestricted movement for all Palestinians, and the removal of the apartheid wall. Conversely, if the Authority stubbornly persists on a path of compromise, it will reap the opposite of what it claims to seek—and a third intifada could prove fatal to it.

Overview of the clashes around Ramallah

The bloody toll continues to climb in the Gaza Strip: 583 Palestinians killed and 3,640 wounded (including many amputations) since July 8. The United Nations even publishes morbid charts, assigning a tiny silhouette to each victim. Every day the local media are flooded with horrifying images—bodies torn apart, videos of snipers executing people live—followed by the unspeakable comments of genocide supporters. The war is waged online as well as on the ground.

Meanwhile, Israeli demonstrators shout loudly for murder in the streets, erecting anti‑Arab, anti‑left checkpoints in Haifa and Tel Aviv. The idea is to force motorists to chant “death to the Arabs,” under penalty of being beaten. The atmosphere is nauseating.

On the other side of the wall, clashes with the Israeli army are daily, and the number of injured is staggering. Israeli soldiers fire live rounds, hitting targets multiple times per hour. In the Ramallah suburbs I have watched stone‑throwers fall one after another, crouching or sprinting from cover to cover. Stones and Molotov cocktails rarely reach their targets, while bullets seem to pierce everything. Rifles sweep the darkness, a metallic snap follows, and a whizzing bullet flies—life and death reduced to a coin toss.

Around Ramallah, several hotspots heat up every night after the evening prayer (Isha), roughly from 10:30 p.m. until three or four in the morning:

OFER – The town is actually called Betunia, but the fighting takes place a few hundred metres from the Israeli Ofer prison and its checkpoint. Ofer, together with Megiddo and Ktzi’ot, is one of the three main Israeli detention facilities holding between 800 and 1,200 Palestinian prisoners. The prison looms in the background; in the foreground a narrow road leaves Betunia toward the checkpoint, where an expansive vacant lot offers no shelter. Atop a hill stands a factory owned by businessman Yasser Abbas—son of Mahmoud Abbas—who manufactures cigarettes. The enterprise, built on wealth accrued since the Oslo accords, underscores how little the Abbas family seems to care about the peace process. Yasser, a Canadian citizen, watches the clashes from a small balcony while his security detail observes. Palestinians use the steep slopes near the factory for cover, hurling stones at vehicles that shuttle back and forth across the vacant lot. They also try to approach the eastern flank of the hill, which looks directly onto the Wall, where soldiers keep a gate ready for counter‑attacks.

QALANDIYA – I have described this site previously. Its terrain is treacherous. The checkpoint is fortified with concrete blocks, behind which soldiers take up firing positions. On either side of the perpetually congested road lie cramped stalls with virtually no shelter. To the right, a massive embankment shelters a restaurant, a metal shed, and construction equipment that can be used as cover. In the centre, traffic streams continuously through the fighting as if nothing were happening. To the left, a covered sidewalk runs past shuttered shops. Clashes usually begin with piles of tires set ablaze on the road, then shift up the hill that skirts the Wall. The layout rarely allows anyone to get closer than 150 metres to the checkpoint—beyond that range only slingshots have a chance of hitting anything.

BEIT EL – What is commonly called Ramallah actually comprises two adjacent towns: Ramallah to the west and Al Bireh to the east, linked by Route 60. Leaving the city at a roundabout, a massive concrete flagpole rises, topped by a Palestinian flag—a defiant banner to settlers and soldiers across the street. To the east, two settlements—Psagot and Beit El—overlook the town; the latter shares half its territory with a military base. Most of the clashes occur near that base, north of the Ramallah‑Al Bireh corridor, behind a cluster of houses and an Al‑Huda gas station. The terrain is largely exposed; only the houses and their low walls provide any cover. On July 20 the fighting there reached a particularly violent peak.

AR‑RAM – This town sits directly above the Qalandia checkpoint to the south. Its main entrance is a wide roundabout on the winding Route 60 that leads to Bethlehem. It was here that 20‑year‑old Mahmoud Hatem Shawamra was killed on July 21. Accounts of his death diverge: some say a settler shot him, others claim Israeli soldiers fired at his back. He died in a military ambulance bound for nearby Hizma. Youth gathered at the spot where he was allegedly shot, surrounded by discarded Israeli medical gear. No evidence confirms a settler’s involvement; the location is precisely where clashes regularly erupt, at the entrance to Ar Ram.

From there a protest marched after news of his death, first toward the center of Ar Ram and then toward armored Israeli units that had been positioned for hours opposite the town’s roundabout. To reach the soldiers, protesters first had to exit the town and get onto the road, but the troops were entrenched behind a concrete barrier and quickly repelled attacks with well‑lit gunfire.

Beyond the Ramallah district, daily clashes are reported from Hebron, Halhul, Beit Umar and Al‑Arrub, where the population endures regular army incursions. Yet the conflict is not confined to a handful of towns or villages that bear the torch of Palestinian resistance; wherever Israeli soldiers set foot, locals respond with stone‑throwing. The intense events of the past month have reignited the anger of a population pressured far too long.

Some Western observers see the non‑violent Friday protests in Bil’in, Ni’lin, Nabi Saleh, Al Masara and Kufr Qaddum as the future of Palestinian insurrection. In reality, everyday resistance is far less visible and receives far less media coverage outside local outlets. Most of it unfolds after dark.

Occupying forces do not like witnesses

Friday, July 18, proved especially tense between Palestinians and the Israeli army. As on many Fridays across the occupied territories, Palestinians stormed Israeli forces and installations—not with weapons, but with the almost suicidal determination that has become their hallmark. Yesterday’s resolve was sharpened by a desire to show solidarity with Gaza’s residents, who have been massacred for weeks by Israeli troops.

In the afternoon I first made my way to Ofer.

The clashes there meet an often disproportionate Israeli response; soldiers do not hesitate to fire live rounds when tear gas and rubber bullets fail to achieve their aims. During these displays of force, the Israeli army frequently makes no distinction between rioter, medic, passerby or journalist. On that day I witnessed a deliberate hunt for journalists. Military jeeps repeatedly approached reporters in a threatening manner, forcing them back into their vehicles before deliberately tossing gas grenades at their feet. Later, a water cannon was used to “clean” the journalists present.

I experienced that targeted violence firsthand. While standing alone ahead of an armored army vehicle, a rubber‑bullet struck me squarely in the chest, even though I was holding my camera at eye level. It is indisputable that, as a witness, I was the direct target of that shot, and the soldier firing from the vehicle’s door clearly knew the projectile would hit me just centimeters from my face.

Late that evening the fighting broke out near the Qalandia checkpoint. Arriving with a photographer friend and trying to get as close as possible to the Israeli soldiers while gunfire raged, we found ourselves alongside Palestinian television journalists under heavy Israeli fire. One of the journalists, Fadi Al Jayoussi, was hit in the leg.

Israel once again displayed blind, indiscriminate violence, even as the Gaza operation—condemned worldwide—has already claimed 316 lives and injured more than 2,200 people, the majority of them children.

Enough is enough: Israel fires on crowd at Qalandiya

On July 24, a collective called for a demonstration to mark the Nakba—the destruction of roughly 400 Palestinian villages and the forced exile of 700,000 Palestinians during the founding of the State of Israel. The protest was slated to depart from the Al‑‘Amari refugee camp, force its way through the Qalandia checkpoint, and continue on to Jerusalem and the Al‑Aqsa Mosque, which had been closed to anyone under 50 for several days even as Muslims prepared to celebrate the end of Ramadan.

Posters posted throughout Ramallah announced a 21:30 start time. Yet thousands of Palestinians were already gathered on Route 60 well before the hour, forming a sea of Palestinian flags and keffiyehs. With a photographer friend I set out to join the head of the march, but it took an hour to catch up with the procession. By then the front of the march had already reached Qalandia, where the Israeli army had, for hours, sealed the checkpoint with concrete blocks and steel grates, waiting resolutely.

The Israeli forces were invisible to us, blinded by a massive floodlight mounted on one of the watchtowers that bathed the entire scene in blinding glare.

The clash had been underway for some time; hundreds of stones already littered the ground. As we arrived the crowd grew denser and dozens of ambulances were already making their frantic rounds. Black clouds billowed from burning tires, and in front of us dozens of Palestinians hurled projectiles at the Israeli convoy, taking cover behind scant obstacles—a central median wall, a tired warehouse, a garbage bin and a metal barbecue grill. Hundreds of people crouched in tight groups, trying to avoid Israeli fire.

From the front of the scene we were thrust straight into the horror: a stretcher carried in the body of the first martyr, his forehead pierced by a bullet. Every two minutes another group pulled a wounded person toward awaiting ambulances. Repeated pleas for medics, thick plumes of black smoke, the crack of gunfire, fireworks and ambulance sirens created an apocalyptic tableau. The Arabic word “SA’AF!” (paramedic) echoed over the chaos.

Having lost sight of my friend, I moved around the battlefield—right beside the separation wall, left onto rooftops, and in the middle of the road—spending about fifteen minutes lying flat against a wall with dozens of others while Israeli shooters fired just above our heads. The green laser sights of Israeli rifles and the high‑pitched whine of bullets were terrifying.

There were a few instances of live fire from the Palestinian side, met with whistles and applause, but overall the fight was waged with stones, Molotov cocktails and fireworks. Repeated Palestinian assaults, shouted with “Allāhu Akbar!”, were answered by bursts of gunfire, bullets whizzing through the crowd and striking moving bodies. The clash left roughly 287 injured and two dead, figures that should soon be confirmed by doctors at the Ramallah hospital. Many of the wounded—and likely one of the fatalities—came from the Al‑‘Amari refugee camp.

I would later find out the identity of the young man I saw on the stretcher: Muhammad al-A’raj, from Qalandiya, killed at the age of 17.

I left the battle around 3 a.m., when the crowd had thinned and staying any longer grew increasingly dangerous. I, like many here, had hoped the march would force the checkpoint open, but the struggle was starkly uneven. Despite the unwavering determination of hundreds of young Palestinians daring to face the bullets, the assault lacked organization: no shields, virtually no barricades, and almost nothing to protect the demonstrators.

Back in Paris, my mind is still on fire

I returned from Palestine this Monday and am trying to put my thoughts in order, to revisit what I saw, the conversations I had, and the sensations I experienced during the 45 days I spent in Israel and the West Bank.

Putting aside Orientalist or exoticising lenses, I found among the Palestinians an incredible hospitality and an openness of mind that is hard to comprehend. After so many years of deprivation and violence, it is astonishing that the Palestinian people can still summon the strength to love the Other and open their doors to strangers. One might expect that a people whose lives are strewn with tragedy would inevitably be driven by their darkest emotions, that a wounded nation’s destiny is to unleash itself in adversity and terrorism. But that is not the case.

Martyrdom is part of Palestinian life, and dying at the hands of the enemy is regarded by the families of shaheed both as a tragedy and an honor. Yet I did not encounter the fanaticism that some attribute to all Palestinians or the assumption that every Palestinian supports suicide attacks.

At the same time, I must admit that I feel neither contempt nor indifference toward those who have chosen to give their lives for freedom, whether out of anger, despair, or hatred. Putting one’s life on the line is never a simple choice; it is often the culmination of a long descent into hell, a slow awareness of life’s futility in contexts where everything obstructs happiness and joy. Israel has created the conditions for its own destruction by continually crushing an entire people under a steel heel, under the pretext of fighting terrorism, while the root of that terrorism lies in the very origins of Israel’s creation: without the demolition of hundreds of villages, without the assassination and expulsion of thousands of Palestinians from their lands, and without the occupation, there would be no terrorism.

In Palestine I was never afraid. The only moments I felt fear were when I was in contact with settlers and Israeli soldiers. They are as fearful as they inspire fear because they are made of fear. Confined to residential enclaves surrounded by walls and barbed wire, armed with automatic weapons and accompanied by armed men, they express distrust and contempt and have forgotten their humanity. Their aggression often extends even to non‑Palestinians. The excuses they might offer to justify their closed‑off stance are false: they are not in danger. A simple comparison of Israeli and Palestinian death tolls since 2000 shows that they are not the ones who need protection and security the most.

But when you speak with them, it quickly becomes clear that they are steeped in myths and prejudices, convinced from a young age that the Arab is a murderer and a liar who only wants the destruction of Jews. Among settlers, it is said that Arab children learn to kill at school, that the notion of peace does not exist for them, that Arab civilization lacks faith and law, and that the Qur’an teaches only violence. Talking with settlers made me hear things I never imagined could come from a people long persecuted and victimised by racism. These Jews have forgotten.

During my month in Palestine I discovered that Israeli societal racism is extreme, capable of taking the form of pogroms comparable to those that caused the deaths of thousands of Jews in Russia between 1880 and 1945. I saw large groups of young Israelis descend into the streets shouting “death to the Arabs,” beating their detractors, expressing murderous desires, and openly insisting on targeting children and pregnant women so that the Arab race would not reproduce. Israeli elites may claim these are marginal positions, but the statements of public figures, the state’s tacit approval of settler violence, and the propaganda surrounding the massacre of Gaza’s population all send encouraging signals to Israeli fascists.

Nevertheless, there are many Israeli voices opposed to the state’s policies: Jewish peace organizations, anti‑Zionist Orthodox Jews, left‑wing activists, anarchists against the wall. They, too, face unparalleled violence, accused of betraying their people and of playing into antisemitic narratives, even though they are merely denouncing Jewish nationalism.

Palestine is undeniably a land of contrasts and dissonances. When I trace the events of the past month, the inconsistencies pile up. Nothing today clarifies, for example, the circumstances of the deaths of the settlers Gilad Shaer, Naftali Fraenkel and Eyal Yifrah, whose bodies were found almost intact after two weeks under a pile of rocks in full sun. Israel rushed to accuse two young Palestinians from Halhul—never located—before demolishing their families’ homes and arresting their relatives. Military operations across numerous West Bank towns, settler violence, the assassination of the young Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir in Shu’afat, and the bombing of Gaza have resulted in weeks of daily clashes in which hundreds of Palestinians have been injured and about twenty killed in the West Bank.

Who bears responsibility? What will become of the fanatics who burned Mohammed Abu Khdeir alive? They have already been released under judicial supervision. What will become of the soldiers who, deliberately, with their advanced weaponry, shot Palestinians armed only with stones? They are praised; they have done their job. Israel thanks its assassins.

Meanwhile in Gaza, the toll stands at 1,422 dead (23 % children) and 8,265 injured as of 31 July—surpassing the casualty counts of previous operations. Israel does not defend itself; it exterminates. Some speak of genocide, a term that should not be used without UN endorsement.

I left Palestine as the Al‑Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades—the armed wing of Fatah—launched targeted attacks against Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank, in solidarity with Gaza and in support of Hamas actions. Suffice it to say, the summer is far from cooling down.