Druze religious leader calls on world to ‘stop the quiet massacre’ in Syria

By Diana Bletter

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29 June 2026, 4:03 pm

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Reporter at The Times of Israel

Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif (center) at a conference at Western Galilee College in Acre on June 29, 2026. (Diana Bletter/Times of Israel)

Speaking at a conference on “The Druze in the Middle East, between crisis and hope,” at Western Galilee College in Acre, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, the religious leader of Israel’s Druze community, calls on America and Europe to “stop the quiet massacre that is continuing in Sweida, Syria.”

He says that in 2025, “thousands of Druze were killed, hundreds were kidnapped, women and children were raped.”

“There are still 500,000 Druze trapped in 30 villages in Syria and nobody in the world is talking about it,” he says.

“America and Europe don’t understand terrorism,” Tarif says. “The leaders in Damascus are jihadists. But the Druze are still surviving there. They will not surrender.”