Netanyahu Reveals 2025 Call to Syria's Sharaa Over Druze Killings
Benjamin Netanyahu said on 15 October 2026 that he phoned Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa after Israel's July 2025 strikes on Damascus. He described a brief, forceful conversation and claimed it stopped the killing of Druze in southern Syria.
Speaking at a Likud gathering with representatives of the Druze community, the prime minister pledged continued protection and said further work remained. Walla published Hebrew footage and reporting from the event, while The Times of Israel identified the disclosure as the first publicly reported conversation between the two leaders.
A disclosed call, not a peace agreement
Netanyahu said he initiated the contact after Israeli attacks on Syria's defence headquarters and a military target near the presidential palace. His account adds a direct conversation between leaders to a period previously known for military action and mediation.
The claimed effect of the call remains his assessment. Israel News Pulse could not independently find a Syrian response to the disclosure. Neither a transcript nor a jointly confirmed account of the conversation was available in the material reviewed.
Israel and Syria do not have diplomatic relations. Public disclosure of a telephone call therefore matters, but it does not establish normalisation or a concluded security agreement.
The crisis in July 2025
Israel struck the Syrian defence headquarters in Damascus and an area near the presidential palace on 16 July 2025. It said its intervention was intended to protect Druze in southern Syria, where fighting around Suwayda involved Druze fighters, Bedouin groups and government forces.
Reports of killings and abuse of Druze civilians prompted alarm among the community in Israel. Some Israeli Druze crossed the border seeking to help relatives and fellow community members in Syria.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on 16 July that Washington had engaged the parties and agreed steps to end the fighting. That mediation was another element of the crisis, so a single conversation should not be presented as the independently proven explanation for everything that followed.
Why the Druze connection matters
The Druze are a distinct religious community with populations in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Family and communal ties cross borders, while many Druze citizens of Israel serve in the IDF and other security institutions.
Those ties help explain why violence in Suwayda became an immediate concern inside Israel. Netanyahu's promise was addressed to an audience with personal connections to the Syrian community, rather than to a distant foreign policy issue.
Security talks continue on a separate track
Israel and Syria have discussed security arrangements since Bashar al-Assad's fall in December 2024. A continuing issue is Israel's military presence in the buffer zone established under the 1974 disengagement framework, which Syrian officials want ended.
Reuters reported in August 2026 that Mossad chief Roman Gofman had spoken with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani about Turkish military deployments. Those contacts provide context for the newly disclosed call without proving a broader diplomatic breakthrough.
Netanyahu made his remarks 12 days before Israel's scheduled 27 October election. The timing is established; the available evidence does not establish an electoral motive for his disclosure.
