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Since Syria's new government took over late last year, Israel has hit more than 300 targets inside its neighbor's territory. Recent weeks have seen strikes in and around the Syrian capital. Israel says the strikes are to protect a religious minority that is under attack from Islamist armed factions loyal to the new Syrian government. Violent clashes this month have killed about 100 Druze. That's according to rights groups. The small Druze community straddles the border between Israel and Syria. NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi reports from northern Israel.
UNIDENTIFIED SOLDIER: (Non-English language spoken).
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HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: Israeli soldiers stand in front of the barbed-wire fence separating this hill and the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights. Resident Salha Abu Saleh (ph) peers through binoculars into Syria, just on the other side of the tall barrier. She waves to her daughter, Hasnaa (ph), who's sheltering in a small home there with her family. They fled the recent violence in their village near Damascus. Her 67-year-old mother, Abu Saleh, says they have little there.
ABU SALEH: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "Yesterday, they asked for water," Abu Saleh says. "The water tank is dry." Abu Saleh is part of the Druze community living on the Israeli side of the border. It's a close-knit religious minority - an offshoot of Shia Islam. Many have family in Syria. They're worried about them as sectarian clashes broke out in Druze villages there. Some Druze see the new rulers of Syria as hard-line Islamists, and some of the armed factions in Syria's new government see the Druze as heretics. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also become involved.
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PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "We are committed to our brothers, to our sisters, to the Druze community," he says.
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NETANYAHU: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "Not just in Israel," Netanyahu says, "but also in Syria." He's backed that up with strikes near the Syrian presidential palace this month, calling it a warning, and that more will come if violence against the Druze continues. Israel sent aid to Syrian Druze villages affected by the violence and evacuated some of the injured for treatment to an Israeli hospital.
Some Druze in Israel applaud the support. Many have Israeli citizenship and serve in the Israeli army. Amir Khnifess heads the Israeli-Druze Center.
AMIR KHNIFESS: We believe that we should have the same support for our people and for our community, whether in Israel or across the border.
AL-SHALCHI: Some have been demonstrating, blocking roads and burning tires. A group of Israeli Druze soldiers are pushing for more military action. But not all are on board. Said Nafa is a former Druze member of the Israeli parliament. He worries his community is being used to further Netanyahu's ambitions in the Middle East.
SAID NAFA: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "To tear up Syria, to divide it for Israel's long-term political strategy, etc.," he says.
Netanyahu says that strategy is to keep Israel safe after the fall of the Assad regime. It even seized a buffer zone in Syrian territory that the U.N. has patrolled for decades, and for months, Israeli forces have been expanding further into Syrian villages. Shira Efron of the Israel Policy Forum says Israel's actions could endanger the Syrian Druze, making them look like collaborators - Israel's proxies.
SHIRA EFRON: Which doesn't help them, actually makes them even more vulnerable to anti-Druze biases.
AL-SHALCHI: And she says it's not the wisest move for Israel to be injecting itself into the political instability in Syria today.
EFRON: Israel's really not on top of the list of their concerns now in Syria. The country is just trying to rebuild itself, and you're turning Israel into a problem.
AL-SHALCHI: All this uncertainty between Syria and Israel weighs heavily on the divided Abu Saleh family on the hill in Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights.
SALEH: (Non-English language spoken).
HASNAA: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: Salha Abu Saleh calls her daughter, Hasnaa, just within eyesight over the fence.
HASNAA: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: Hasnaa tells her mom she's scared. There's no safety or stability, and that's what she's really looking for.
Hadeel Al-Shalchi, NPR News, Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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