Syrian Druze cross armistice line for pilgrimage to Israel
Dozens of Syrian Druze clerics crossed the armistice line on the Golan Heights into Israel on Friday for their community's first pilgrimage to a revered shrine in decades.
On board three buses escorted by Israeli military vehicles, the clerics crossed at Majdal Shams in the Golan, and headed to northern Israel.
According to a source close to the group, the delegation of around 60 clerics was due to meet the spiritual leader of Israel's Druze community, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif.
They then headed to the tomb of Nabi Shuaib in the Galilee -– the most important religious site for the Druze -- where they arrived in the evening to pray.
Followers of the esoteric monotheistic faith are mainly divided between Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
In Majdal Shams, the visitors were met by scores of Druze residents who sang songs to welcome them.
Young boys waved the green, red, yellow, blue and white Druze flag, while the men wore traditional black garb and white and red headwear.
- 'Represent only themselves'-
"We are really drowned by good feelings and we are hosting brothers after politics and the wire have separated us for a long time," said Salim Zeidan, 74, a retired formerly teacher whose family was visiting from Syria.
"We've been waiting to meet them for many years, it is a very emotional moment," added Jamal Ayub, a 61-year-old farmer who had travelled from the Galilee to welcome his uncle.
The visit followed an invitation from the Druze community in Israel, according to a source close to the delegation, but has been met with opposition from other Druze in Syria.
The minority accounts for about three percent of Syria's population and is heavily concentrated in the southern province of Sweida.
In Israel and the occupied Golan Heights, there are around 150,000 Druze, with most of those living in Israel holding Israeli citizenship and serving in the army.
However, of the roughly 23,000 living in the occupied Golan Heights, most do not hold Israeli citizenship and still see themselves as Syrian nationals.
Residents of Hader village in Syria, from where the clerics departed on Friday, condemned the trip, saying in a statement that the clerics "represent only themselves".
They accused Israel of "exploiting this religious visit as a tool to sow division" and of "seeking to use the Druze community as a defensive line to achieve its expansionist interests in southern Syria".
Israel seized much of the strategic Golan Heights from Syria in a war in 1967, later annexing the area in 1981 in a move largely unrecognised by the international community.
- 'Bold alliance' -
The pilgrimage comes as Israel has voiced support for Syria's Druze and mistrust of the country's new leaders.
Following the ouster of longtime Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in December, Israel carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syria and sent troops into the demilitarised buffer zone of the Golan in southwest Syria.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said Thursday that 10,000 humanitarian aid packages had been sent to "the Druze community in battle areas of Syria" over the past few weeks.
"Israel has a bold alliance with our Druze brothers and sisters," he told journalists.
During a visit to military outposts in the UN-patrolled buffer zone between Israel and Syria on Tuesday, Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel would remain in the area and ensure the protection of the Druze.
In early March, following a deadly clash between government-linked forces and Druze fighters in the suburbs of Damascus, Katz said his country would not allow Syria's new rulers "to harm the Druze".
Druze leaders immediately rejected Katz's warning and declared their loyalty to a united Syria.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that southern Syria must be completely demilitarised, warning that his government would not accept the presence of the forces of the new Islamist-led government near its territory.
