(24 Jul 2025)
RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Beirut – 24 July 2025
1. Arrival of leader of the Druze community in Lebanon, Sheikh Sami Abi al-Muna, to news conference
2. Various of Druze Sheikhs during news conference
3. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Sheikh Sami Abi al-Muna, Leader of the Druze community in Lebanon:
“Today, on behalf of the Council of the Druze Religious Authority and the Druze Unitarian Sect, we are launching a broad humanitarian campaign and an urgent, resounding call to support the stricken (Syrian province of) Sweida. Despite the deep wounds of its people, we are committed to tirelessly working to rescue the injured, treat the sick and wounded, and secure the return of the abducted especially the women today."
4. Mid of cameraman
5. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Sheikh Sami Abi al-Muna, Leader of the Druze community in Lebanon:
“In order to carry out a thorough and transparent investigation into the massacres committed, accountability must be urgent and firm for the actors, the Council and the instigators. Studying the dimensions and motives of what happened, and the correlation of those dimensions. The motives are the philosophy and existence of the state."
6. Close of cameraman
STORYLINE:
The spiritual leader of Lebanon’s Druze community announced Thursday a campaign to assist injured people and investigate killings following recent violence in Syria’s Sweida province.
Clashes broke out on July 13 between Sunni Muslim Bedouin clans and armed groups of the Druze religious minority, and government security forces who intervened to restore order ended up siding with the Bedouins.
At a conference in Beirut, Sheikh Sami Abi al-Muna told reporters the campaign would also seek to secure the release of people abducted during the clashes, especially women.
“In order to carry out a thorough and transparent investigation into the massacres committed, accountability must be urgent and firm for the actors, the Council and the instigators," he said.
Sheikh al-Muna emphasized the need for a deeper understanding of the motives behind and implications of the attacks.
Syrian government security forces allegedly killed Druze civilians and looted and burned homes.
Druze armed groups later launched revenge attacks on Bedouin communities.
Israel also intervened, launching strikes on convoys of government forces and on the Syrian Defense Ministry headquarters in Damascus, which Israeli officials said were in defense of the Druze religious minority.
Hundreds have been killed, and the U.N. says more than 130,000 people have been displaced.
The fighting threatened Syria’s fragile transition and underscored the difficulties the new government faces as it tries to consolidate control over the country, months after Islamist-led insurgents ousted longtime autocrat Bashar Assad last December.
The fighting has stopped as a ceasefire takes hold, but tensions remain high and the violence has further shaken the trust of religious minorities in the new government.
AP video shot by Fadi Tawil
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