17/7/2025–|Last update: 04:55 (Mecca time)
Syrian President Ahmed Al -Shara said in a speech at dawn today, Thursday, the announcement of the calm agreement in As -Suwayda that Israel sought to undermine the ceasefire had it not been for American, Arab and Turkish mediation.
Al -Shara added in his speech that “the Israeli entity has been seeking since the fall of the defunct regime to transform our land into the land of conflict and dismantle our people,” stressing that “there is no place to implement the ambitions of others in our land and we will restore Syria to its prestige and we must prevail in the national interest.”
Regarding the Israeli bombing that affected Damascus and other areas in Syria on Wednesday, the Syrian President said, “We were between the option of war with Israel or the way for the Druze sheikhs to the agreement, so we chose to protect the country.”
In this context, he said, “We are not the one who fears the war, but we presented the interests of the people on chaos, and our optimal choice was to protect the unity of the country. The Syrian state intervened with all its institutions to stop the internal fighting in As -Suwayda and succeeded in controlling security.”
The Syrian President: Our people from the Druze are an essential part of the fabric of the homeland and their protection is a priority for us, and we were between the option of war with Israel or gave the way to the Druze elders to the agreement, so we chose to protect the homeland#Al -Jazeera – Syria #News pic.twitter.com/zUu4Lsiaih
Al -Jazeera channel (@AjArabic) July 17, 2025
On the agreement with the elders of the mind of the Druze community, Al -Shara said, “We decided to assign some local factions and the sheikhs of the mind to restore security, and our people from the Druze are an essential part of the fabric of the homeland and their protection is a priority for us.”
He stressed that “the Syrians with their long history rejected the forms of division, and we are the sons of this land and are able to overcome the attempts of the Israeli entity to tear us, as Syria is not a field of experiments of external conspiracies and the ambitions of others, and building a new Syria requires us to pay attention to our country.”
Israel – which declared “not abandoning” the Druze and called for their protection – yesterday, Wednesday, a series of raids on sites in As -Suwayda and Damascus, where the Israeli Air Force targeted the General Staff Building, the Ministry of Defense and the vicinity of the presidential palace, and Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz announced that the warning messages of Damascus ended and vowed what he called “painful strikes.”
(Tagstotranslate) News (T) Syria