Why Israel bombed Syria

Netanyahu has appointed himself protector of a religious minority. But more is at play View in browser Oliver Marsden • Friday 18 July 2025 Dear friend, Welcome to today's Sensemaker. Long stories short The UK government said it would lower the voting age to 16 (more below). Mark Zuckerberg settled an $8 billion lawsuit over Cambridge Analytica. England beat Sweden in the Euros after a 14-kick penalty shootout. Why Israel bombed Syria Israel bombed the Syrian capital of Damascus on Wednesday, targeting the defence ministry and military facilities in a warning to the Syrian government. A US-brokered truce was reestablished shortly after but remains fragile. Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was "working to save our Druze brothers".   So what? More is at play. Israel has positioned itself as the protector of minorities in Syria from abuses by security forces. But the attacks mark a dramatic escalation against a government that was already negotiating peace with Tel Aviv; has established friendlier relations with the US; and shares Israel's enmity towards Iran and its proxy forces in the region.   The backstory. On 11 July, Arab Bedouin tribes reportedly robbed and kidnapped a Druze vegetable seller near the province of Suweida in southern Syria. The violence escalated as retaliatory attacks by the Druze set off a cycle of bloodshed that killed more than 350 people. The intervention. This culminated on Wednesday when Israel bombed the Syrian defence ministry in Damascus, as well as government forces in the south. The Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa accused Israel of a "large-scale escalation". Bigger picture. Since Assad's fall, Israel has expanded military outposts into southern Syria to enforce a demilitarised zone along the annexed Golan Heights. Israel's motivations. Netanyahu has vowed to keep the Golan Heights and Suweida free of Syrian military and said that he "will not allow a second Lebanon to be established there". Israel fears a united Syria, with former al-Qaeda fighters at its helm, could pose a security threat. He wants to avoid, at all costs, assaults that echo Hezbollah's rocket attacks into northern Israel. Other factors. Netanyahu may also believe the strikes improve his standing at home. The attacks on Syria curtailed his criminal trial on Wednesday. Continued conflict between Israel and its neighbours has been effective at keeping Netanyahu out of court and sustaining his coalition.   The strongman. Appearing tough in the face of potential threats may give Netanyahu greater leverage during negotiations to end the war in Gaza. But it risks exacerbating a delicate sectarian situation in Syria. Clashes between minorities and the government have flared in recent months. The Druze. An esoteric offshoot of Shia Islam founded in the 11th century, the Druze blend Islamic tenets with other philosophies and a belief in monotheism and reincarnation. Fiercely private and opposed to interfaith marriage, they number around a million globally. In Syria, they are concentrated in Suweida. Some hardline Sunnis dismiss them as heretics.   Do something. More than 150,000 Druze live in Israel and a significant portion serve in the military, including in Gaza. Some have reached a high rank and many identify as citizens of Israel, making domestic pressure from the community hard to ignore.   What to do? Syria's Druze community finds itself pulled in opposite directions. Some leaders back Damascus, while others reject the government and instead appeal to world leaders such as Netanyahu for support. Lebanon's veteran Druze politician, Walid Jumblatt, warns against such overtures. He accuses Israel of fuelling sectarian strife and urges unity within Syria. One step forward. Syrian security forces pulled out of Suweida yesterday in a bid to quell fighting between Druze militias, Bedouin tribes and regime troops. Al-Sharaa said the Druze would oversee security in the province, in the interest of Syrians "over chaos and destruction".   Two back. But soon after government forces withdrew, Druze groups reportedly began targeting Bedouin villages. Israel then carried out an airstrike on Suweida city. What's next. Druze reprisals may unsettle hardline Sunni factions within the security forces, whose withdrawal from the province sets a precedent that could embolden Kurdish self-rule in the northeast and tacitly cedes influence in the south to Israel. What's more… This, above all, is a win for Netanyahu. The Observer News Matrix The Nibs Capital Economy, business and finance Sugar rush Donald Trump says the Coca-Cola Company has agreed to use cane sugar, rather than high fructose corn syrup, in coke. The president made the announcement with glee, saying: "It's just better!" Many others concur. Mexican coke, which contains cane sugar, is drunk in Hispanic areas of the US and has a cult fanbase that includes former prime minister Rishi Sunak. Coca-Cola also makes kosher-for-Passover coke for Jewish communities who avoid corn during the holiday. The use of cane sugar more widely, not yet confirmed by the firm, could have a redistributive effect. It may harm Iowan and Illinoisan farmers who manage millions of acres of corn used by the $285 billion soft drink market. But Florida and Louisiana stand to gain as the principal domestic growers of sugar cane. So too Brazil and India, which dominate production globally. Technology AI, science and new things Three's a crowd UK scientists have announced the birth of eight healthy babies created using IVF embryos with DNA from three people. Mitochondrial disease, which affects the engine room of cells, is maternally inherited, incurable and often fatal. Scientists at Newcastle University took an egg from a healthy woman and replaced its nuclear genome – which contains genes that determine height and other characteristics – with the genome from the fertilised egg of a woman at risk of transmitting the condition. Children born using the technique owe about 0.1 per cent of their genetic blueprint to the unaffected woman. The Oxford professor Dagan Wells noted that three of the eight showed some evidence of 'reversal', where the proportion of abnormal mitochondria increases before birth, but to levels very unlikely to cause disease. More babies will have to be born to fully understand any risks from the treatment. The 100-year life Health, education and government Dangerous farce The most serious data breach in history has got worse. It emerged yesterday that the personal details of more than 100 British officials, including MI6 spies and special forces soldiers, were included in the leak that put tens of thousands of Afghans at risk of Taliban reprisals. The breach led to the UK setting up a covert asylum scheme that was only revealed publicly on Tuesday. The identities of spooks and SAS troops are meant to be tightly guarded, but were included in a spreadsheet accidentally emailed by a Royal Marine to a group of Afghans in February 2022. The Ministry of Defence only found out about the leak when someone posted extracts on Facebook. A Taliban official claimed in the Telegraph that they had been using the list to track down Afghans who had worked with the British Army. The defence secretary John Healey said he was unable to say if anyone had been killed due to the breach. Our planet Climate and geopolitics New refuge Spain has overtaken Germany as Europe's top asylum destination following a steep decline in applications from Syrians after the fall of Assad. An unpublished EU report seen by the FT shows that Syrian claims, most common in Germany, plummeted from 16,000 last October to 3,100 in May. Overall EU asylum applications dropped by nearly 25 per cent. Numbers fell in Spain too, but were kept high by people fleeing Venezuela. This is a policy story: Germany has adopted tougher border controls as it shrugs off its reputation as Europe's migrant haven, while Spain has championed immigration as an engine of economic growth. But it is also a story about root causes. The drop in Syrian claims supports the argument that a good migration strategy needs to look at why people flee their homes. It is evident that those who left the country did so because of a violent regime and not opportunistically, as some argue. Culture Society, identity and belonging Young ones Labour's plan to lower the voting age to 16 before the general election aligns England and Northern Ireland with the rest of the UK. But the electoral maths is uncertain. There are roughly 1.5 million 16- and 17-year-olds and they lean politically towards the incumbents. An ITV poll of this demographic puts Labour on 33 per cent, Reform on 20 per cent, the Greens on 18 per cent, Lib Dems on 12 per cent, and the Conservatives on 10 per cent. But all bets will be off come election. The new cohort could make a difference in some seats: more than 120 MPs have a majority smaller than the likely number of people aged 16 and 17 in their constituency by 2029. But the overall effect will be minor. Once expected turnout is factored in, the UK is looking at about 500,000 new voters, a fraction of the 29 million Brits who turned out last year. Thanks for reading. Please tell your friends to sign up and tell us what you think. Oliver Marsden @OliverGMarsden Additional reporting by Brad Gray, Stephen Armstrong, Xavier Greenwood and Serena Cesareo. Edited by Xavier Greenwood.     More from The Observer Read The Sycamore Gap sentencing: 'they know not what they do' Adam Carruthers and Daniel Graham may have been sentenced but this is not the last we'll hear of their crime       Click here to read more → Follow Follow The Observer on social media on your preferred platform:   The Observer     The Observer Food Monthly The Observer Magazine The Observer New Review   Listen Listen for free in the Tortoise app or wherever you get your podcasts: Want to change how you receive these emails? Update email preferences Copyright © 2025 Tortoise Media. All rights reserved. Did this email get caught in your spam filter? Add editor@newsroom.observer.co.uk to your address book to never miss an email again. No longer want to receive this newsletter? Unsubscribe here.