Syria’s Sharaa slams Israel for ‘exporting’ conflict to region to hide Gaza ‘massacres’

DOHA, Qatar — Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Saturday accused Israel of “exporting crises” to other countries around the region in order to distract from its “horrifying massacres” in Gaza. Sharaa’s comments, which were perhaps his sharpest against Israel since becoming Syria’s leader a year ago, were made during the annual Doha Forum hosted in the Qatari capital and followed several other regional leaders who also spoke about the war in Gaza.

“Israel… tries to run away from the horrifying massacres committed in Gaza, and it does so by attempting to export crises,” Sharaa said during an onstage interview. “Israel has become a country that is in a fight against ghosts,” he claimed, saying that Israel uses the guise of security concerns and the need to prevent another October 7 massacre to justify every action it takes, even though no such correlation exists.

“Since we arrived in Damascus, we sent positive messages regarding regional peace and stability… and that we are not interested in being a country that exports conflict, including to Israel,” Sharaa continued, referring to his jihadist group’s toppling of the Assad regime last year. “But in return, Israel has met us with extreme violence,” Sharaa said, highlighting the deadly Israeli raid on terrorists in the southern Syrian town of Beit Jinn last month.

“Syria has suffered massive violations of our airspace, and we’ve been victim of over 1000 airstrikes and over 400 incursions,” he said. Sharaa reiterated his call for Israel to withdraw from the Golan territories in southern Syria that it has occupied since December, after Assad fled, with Jerusalem wary of the new Syrian leader’s past as an al-Qaeda commander and citing fears the area would fall into the wrong hands. (Read More)