Saturday, March 15, 2025

Creating liberating content

NEW DELHI: The parliamentary panel on railways has reiterated that

NEW DELHI: Mumbai Indians secured their second Women’s Premier League

Palghar: Police in Maharashtra’s Palghar district have arrested a 49-year-old

Related News

Houthis: Attacks on Israeli ships to resume Houthi rebels in Yemen say they’re resuming attacks on Israeli ships 02:59 The U.S. launched strikes Saturday in Yemen as President Trump said

NEW DELHI: The parliamentary panel on railways has reiterated that railways should review AC fares, implement dynamic pricing models for AC classes and premium trains, and regularly review flexi-fare schemes

NEW DELHI: Mumbai Indians secured their second Women’s Premier League (WPL) title with a thrilling 8-run victory over Delhi Capitals in the final at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai on

Palghar: Police in Maharashtra’s Palghar district have arrested a 49-year-old man for allegedly killing his wife two months ago and disposing of the body, an official said on Saturday. Harish

Representative image (Picture credit: AP) WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s administration on Saturday began making deep cuts to Voice of America and other government-run, pro-democracy programming as the president continued

Kolkata: A domestic help was allegedly murdered at the house of late Indian football legend PK Banerjee following a fight over stealing money in Kolkata’s Salt Lake on Friday. Police

Trending News

Gold prices have reached new record highs, but Gold ETFs experienced a notable slowdown in February, with monthly inflows dropping by 47.22% to Rs 1,979 crore, compared to Rs 3,751

India’s foreign exchange reserves saw a significant jump of USD 15.267 billion, reaching a total of USD 653.966 billion during the week ending March 7, marking the largest increase in

BENGALURU: Wipro has realigned its global business lines (GBLs) to expand its go-to-market capabilities to meet clients’ business needs in emerging technologies driven by AI, cloud, and digital transformation. Wipro

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. posted a surprise earnings fall after weak Chinese iPhone sales eroded margins, though the Nvidia Corp. supplier forecast a doubling in AI-related revenue this quarter.The

BENGALURU: Infosys McCamish Systems (IMS), a subsidiary of Infosys BPM, has agreed to put $17.5 million into a fund to settle pending class-action lawsuits and resolve allegations following a cybersecurity

NEW DELHI: Elon Musk-led Tesla Inc. initiated the process for the certification and homologation of two of its electric cars in India, which is an essential requirement for all vehicles

Syrian Druse Pilgrims Pay Rare Visit to Israel

Word Count: 552 | Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes


A delegation of Syrian Druse made a rare visit to Israel over the weekend for a pilgrimage to a shrine as Israel seeks to extend its influence inside Syria after the fall of the dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Both Israel and Syria have sizable minorities who belong to the Druse sect — an Arabic-speaking religious minority scattered across the Levant region. But with Israel and Syria formally at war for decades, Syrian Druse were generally unable to enter Israel to visit sites holy to their faith.

Sheikh Muwafaq Tarif, a Druse leader in Israel who helped organize the two-day visit, said roughly 100 people arrived on Friday in a convoy from Syrian territory. They also visited the Tomb of the Prophet Shuaib in the northern Galilee region of Israel, a site deeply revered in their faith.

“After being cut off for decades, to see our people arriving in our country — it’s a moment of great joy,” said Mr. Tarif, adding that he knew most of the visitors only from phone conversations, given the great difficulty of traveling between the two countries.

In Israel, many Druse hold Israeli passports, serve in the national military and are viewed as loyal “brothers in arms.” Others in the Golan Heights, territory that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war, still hold Syrian identity and have Israeli residency cards, not citizenship.

Since the collapse of Mr. al-Assad’s dictatorship in early December, Israel has launched a barrage of airstrikes on Syria which it says are aimed at preventing hostile forces from massing near its borders. But the moves have prompted fears among Syrians of a protracted Israeli occupation of Syrian territory.

At the same time, Israel has reached out to the Syrian Druse, many of whom live in villages and cities in southern Syria, as potential partners.

The Druse militias in Syria are under pressure to integrate into a unified national military that the new president is trying to establish. Israeli officials have suggested that Israel could intervene on behalf of the Druse, including militarily, if they came under threat from government forces.

David Mencer, an Israeli government spokesman, said this week that Israel was “prepared to defend, if needed, the Druse population in Syria from the forces of the new regime.” The major Syrian Druse militias flatly rejected the offer.

Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, said this week that Israel was preparing to allow some Syrian Druse into Israel to work in the Golan Heights.

The Druse belong to a sect that broke away from Islam roughly 1,000 years ago, ultimately becoming a separate religion. Its members, now scattered between Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and northern Israel, have often found themselves on opposing sides of conflicts in the region.

Since the fall of Mr. al-Assad, Israeli troops have marched into Syrian territory, seizing a 155-square-mile buffer zone and bombarding targets across the country. Israeli officials have denounced the new government in Damascus for its Islamist leadership and said that their forces will remain in Syrian territory for the foreseeable future.

The new Syrian president, Ahmed al-Shara, has called on the international community to pressure Israel to withdraw. He has also maintained that his government poses no threat to its neighbors or to religious minorities like the Druse because Syrians are weary of war.



Source link

Sign In

Welcome ! Log into Your Account