Netanyahu Says He Spoke With Syria’s Leader About Druze Plight

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he spoke to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa last year as part of an intervention on behalf of the threatened Druze minority in the Arab country.

The call would have been highly unusual given the two countries do not have diplomatic relations and are in a formal, decades-old state of war. The nations have pursued US-mediated negotiations on easing hostilities, but no significant progress has been made.

In a speech to the Israeli Druze on Thursday, Netanyahu recalled ordering military strikes in response to attacks on Syrian Druze during sectarian fighting in July 2025.

“I picked up the phone to Al-Sharaa. It was a very short conversation. Very pointed. And the massacre stopped,” he said, without elaborating. “And I’ll do everything necessary in order to protect our brethren.”

Al-Sharaa seized power in Damascus in late 2024 and has sought to re-establish Syria on the world stage following the tenure of his predecessor, Bashar al-Assad.

Netanyahu has been playing up his national-security credentials ahead of Israel’s Oct. 27 election, which comes after three years of near constant war. Israeli opposition has pointed out his government’s failure to prevent the Hamas attacks in 2023 that triggered the war in Gaza.