ISRAEL’S air force dropped bombs near Syria’s presidential palace today after warning Syrian authorities not to march toward villages inhabited by members of the Druze minority in southern Syria.

The strike came after days of clashes between pro-Syrian government gunmen and fighters who belong to the Druze sect near the capital, Damascus. The clashes left dozens of people dead or wounded.

Today’s strike was Israel’s second on Syria this week. On Thursday, Syria’s Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hijri harshly criticised the Syrian government for what he called an “unjustified genocidal attack” on the minority community.

Early today, the Druze religious leadership said the community is part of Syria and refuses to break away from the country, adding that the role of the state should be activated in the southern province of Sweida and authorities should be in control of the Sweida-Damascus highway.

“We confirm our commitment to a country that includes all Syrians, a nation that is free of strife,” the statement said.

In the Damascus suburb of Jaramana, where fighting occurred earlier this week, security forces deployed inside the area along with local Druze gunmen, and at a later stage heavy weapons will be handed over to authorities.

As part of the deal, forces from the Defence Ministry will deploy around Jaramana without entering it.

The Israeli army said that fighter jets struck adjacent to the area of the palace of President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former al-Qaida fighter Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, in Damascus. Its statement gave no further details.

-----CONTINUES ONLINE-----

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz said that the strike was a warning to Syrian leaders.

”This is a clear message to the Syrian regime. We will not allow the deployment of forces south of Damascus or any threat to the Druze community,” their joint statement said.

Pro-government Syrian media outlets said the strike hit close to the People’s Palace on a hill overlooking the city.

Over the past two days, the Israeli military said that it had evacuated Syrian Druze who were wounded in the fighting.

The Israeli army said today that a soldier was killed and three were lightly injured in an accident in the Golan Heights.

An army statement added that the soldiers were evacuated to receive medical treatment at the hospital and that the circumstances of the incident are being investigated.

The clashes broke out around midnight on Monday after an audio clip circulated on social media of a man criticising Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.

The audio was attributed to a Druze cleric. But cleric Marwan Kiwan said in a video posted on social media that he was not responsible for the recording, which angered many Sunni Muslims.

Syria’s Information Ministry said that 11 members of the country’s security forces were killed in two separate attacks, while Britain-based war monitor The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 56 people in Sahnaya and the Druze-majority Damascus suburb of Jaramana were killed in clashes, among them local gunmen and security forces.

The Druze religious sect is a minority group that began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shi’ite Islam. More than half of the roughly one million Druze worldwide live in Syria, largely in the southern Sweida province and some suburbs of Damascus.

Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, legally part of Syria but which Israel has occupied since the Six Day War in 1967.