The Druze Village of Hadr in Qunaytra Province and the Israeli Presence: Interview with a Local
Yesterday, a video emerged of some Israeli settler activists who seek to colonise ‘Bashan’ (i.e. southern Syria) and had reportedly crossed into the area of Hadr- a Druze locality in Qunaytra province that lies opposite the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. In keeping with their prior policy of evicting these would-be-settlers, Israeli forces that have moved into Syrian territory beyond the Golan since the fall of the Assad regime subsequently removed them.
How do locals in Hadr view these reported attempts at settlement and the Israeli presence in their area more generally? Their own stance on Israel is somewhat more complicated than that of Druze in al-Suwayda’ who are behind Hikmat al-Hijri and the notion of an Israeli-backed ‘Bashan Mountain’ autonomy/independence project. After all, for a number of years during the war (2012-2018), Hadr- as a regime-controlled locality- came into conflict with insurgents operating out of neighbouring localities, with some of those insurgents receiving Israeli backing.
Below is an interview conducted today with a resident of Hadr. He lost his daughter because of insurgent shelling of Hadr during the war and his brother- a member of Hezbollah- was assassinated by Israel in 2019. He offers a useful clarification on what actually happened with the would-be-settlers and the complexities behind Israel’s relations with the Druze of Hadr. The interview is edited and condensed for clarity and parenthetical insertions in square brackets are my own.
Screenshot from the video clip of would-be-settlers who crossed the border.
Q: What happened yesterday with the reported entry of Israeli settlers into Hadr?