Netanyahu Says He Spoke With Syria's al-Sharaa, the First Known Contact Between the Leaders
Speaking in a Druze village, the prime minister said a brief call in July 2025 helped stop the killings in Suwayda. Damascus did not address the claim.
By Watchman Report staff ·
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he spoke with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa shortly after Israel bombed Syria's Defense Ministry in Damascus in July 2025, Al-Monitor reported. It would be the first publicly disclosed contact between the leaders of the two countries, which have no formal relations and have fought several wars. "I called Sharaa. It was a very brief and to-the-point conversation, and the massacre stopped," Netanyahu said during a visit to the Druze village of Yarka in northern Israel.
Netanyahu was referring to the violence in Suwayda in July 2025, which began as fighting between Druze and Bedouin groups. Government forces sided with the Bedouin fighters, and more than 1,700 people were killed; a UN report in March said Druze civilians were especially targeted and noted violations by both sides. "We took out the Ministry of Defense in Damascus; we took out a target inside the palace compound," Netanyahu said, pledging to do whatever it takes to protect the Druze.
Syria's government said the Druze are an "integral part" of the country and rejected the issue's "politicization or its forcible insertion into Israeli propaganda and elections," without addressing any call. After Bashar al-Assad's fall in December 2024, Israeli forces seized the UN-patrolled buffer zone and the Syrian side of Mount Hermon. U.S.-mediated talks on a security agreement were put on hold after Israel and the United States launched military operations against Iran in February 2026. The Jerusalem Post called the disclosure a possible signal of a shift in relations.
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