Footage has emerged this week showing the killing of a volunteer paramedic at a hospital in Sweida, Syria, by armed men affiliated with the Syrian government of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa. The killing was recorded by CCTV at the hospital and released on Sunday by the local Suweida 24 outlet. The footage indicates that the killing took place during a rampage by the government-affiliated fighters through Sweida’s main hospital.
The entry of the government’s men into the medical facility took place in the context of the violence between Bedouin tribesmen and Druze Syrians, which erupted on July 13. The government fighters had been dispatched to the area to separate the clashing sides. Once there, however, they began to target the Druze.
The shared Sunni sectarian loyalties were the decisive element. Ninety bodies were later discovered on the hospital grounds. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that 1,400 people lost their lives during the July fighting, many of them Druze civilians.
The July incidents in Syria were the third instance of large-scale sectarian bloodletting in the country since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. The first major eruption was in March, when Islamist gunmen affiliated with the government descended on the western coastal area, after a government checkpoint was attacked by gunmen loyal to the old regime. (Read More)