Syrian interfering pilgrims visit Israel on rare occasions

The Syrian intervention delegation took a rare trip to Israel this week, visiting a shrine revered by faith as Israel seeks to expand its influence within Syria following the collapse of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Israel and Syria have large Druse communities, an Arabic-speaking religious minority scattered throughout the Levant region. However, as the two countries have been officially at war for decades, Syrian hay was generally unable to enter Israel to visit sacred places for their faith.

Sheikh Mwafak Tarif, an Israeli intervention leader who helped organize the two-day visit, said about 100 people had arrived on a fleet from Syrian territory on Friday. They visited the tomb of the prophet Shuaib in the northern Galilee region of Israel, a sacred place for the denomination.

“To see our people arrive in our country after being cut off for decades – that's a great moment of joy,” Tarif said, adding that he knew most of the visitors from telephone conversations because it's so difficult to travel between the two countries.

Oren Marmollstein, a spokesman for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote on social media that pilgrimage is its type for the first time in decades.

In Israel, many Druses hold Israeli passports, serve the national army, and are considered loyal “brothers.” Other druses who live in Golan Heights, a territory that Israel captured and later annexed from Syria in the 1967 Middle East War, still consider themselves Syrians and tend to have Israeli residency cards but not citizenship.

Since the collapse of Al-Assad's dictatorship in early December, Israel has launched a barrage of air strikes on Syria. However, the move prompted fear among Syrians over the prolonged Israeli occupation of Syrian territory.

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

Syrian hay militias are under pressure to integrate into the unified national army that the new president is trying to establish. Israeli officials have suggested that if Israel is under threat from government forces, it could intervene on behalf of interference, including military.

Israeli government spokesman David Mensah said this week that Israel is “ready to defend Syria's interfering population from the new regime's military, if necessary.” Syrian major hay militias flatly rejected the offer.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said this week that he is preparing to allow Israel to work Syrian hay on Israeli-controlled territory at high levels of Goran.

Druse belongs to a sect that distant from Islam around 1,000 years ago, and eventually becomes a different religion. Today, members scattered between Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and northern Israel are often on the other side of conflict in the region.

Since the collapse of Al Assad, Israeli forces have marched over Syrian territory, seized 155 square miles of buffer zones and attacked targets around the country. Israeli officials have denounced the new Damascus government for Muslim leaders and said their troops will remain on Syrian territory in the near future.

Syrian new president, Ahmed Alshara, called on the international community to pressure Israel to withdraw. He also argues that because Syrians are tired of war, his government poses no threat to their neighbors and religious minorities like their drafting.