For nearly three weeks now, members of Canada’s Druze community have been desperately sounding the alarm after an outbreak of ethnic violence in the Sweida area of Syria resulted in the deaths of roughly 1,000 people, mostly civilians.
Tensions erupted on July 11 between local Sunni Bedouin clans and the majority Druze population living in Syria’s southern province. But the Druze say when the Syrian army was sent to the scene, the government soldiers carried out mass killings. Images have emerged of burned-out buildings, bodies on the ground and uniformed soldiers forcibly shaving and tearing off the moustaches of Druze elders.
After days of attacks, Israel took the unprecedented step of launching air raids on Syrian military positions, in support of the Druze people living in northern Israel and their relatives across the Syrian border.
It’s been an agonizing time for Canadian Druze residents, including Hend Raad of Barrie, Ont., who lost 10 members of her family in the recent violence. Jamil Ammar of Niagara Falls says his relatives who were visiting Sweida from elsewhere in the Middle East and Europe are now stuck with no fuel and no way to get out.
On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner speaks with Hend Raad and Jamil Ammar about the situation facing their loved ones in the aftermath of the fighting in Sweida, and what they want Canada to do.
Transcript
Jamil Ammar: I stand before you with a heavy heart to speak about a tragedy unfolding in the shadows of the complex Syrian landscape. A vicious, violent, malicious campaign targeting the Druze community in Sweida, Syria.
Ellin Bessner: That’s what it sounded like a few days ago outside Toronto’s City Hall when over a dozen members of Canada’s Druze community stood and gave a media conference while holding their five-coloured Druze flags. They want to call attention to the killings of nearly a thousand people in the Druze majority province of Sweida in southern Syria three weeks ago.
Beginning on July 11 as a clash between local Bedouin clans and Druze militias in the area, it escalated after the Syrian government sent in its own troops. Druze leaders now accuse those soldiers of carrying out ethnic cleansing and blame the new interim government led by Ahmad Al-Shara, a former Al-Qaeda insurgent turned Syrian rebel.  Meanwhile, Syria’s leaders have called for an investigation into the massacres. For those unfamiliar, the Druze are a small Middle Eastern religious sect. They’re Arabs, but not Muslim. Their people broke away from Islam in the 10th century. Â
Most live in Syria and were loyal initially to the Assad regime but have wanted autonomy in their southern province in whatever political system the new Syria takes. About 25,000 Druze live in Canada, and they’ve been watching horrific images coming out of the region showing uniformed troops forcibly shaving the moustaches off Druze elders, a form of humiliation which Jews understand better than most. Even some local Christian villages were attacked. Â
Sweida is just four and a half hours east of northern Israel by car and the Golan Heights. You’ll recall Israel’s government decided to intervene in Sweida by sending warplanes on July 16 to bomb Syrian military positions and to get the government troops to back off. Even though many Syrian Druze aren’t exactly fans of Israel, as they say, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. For Israel, observers say it was a show of loyalty to their large Druze population. Many Israeli Druze are citizens, serve in the IDF, and have relatives across the border in Sweida. Although there is a ceasefire in place now, reports coming out of the area describe shortages of food and medical supplies, looting, and unreliable electricity.
Jamil Ammar: We are not interested in causing harm to anybody, but it is very unfair for anyone to watch the killing against our own people and nobody is doing anything.
Ellin Bessner: I’m Ellin Bessner and this is what Jewish Canada sounds like for Wednesday, July 30, 2025. Welcome to North Star, a podcast of the Canadian Jewish News, made possible thanks to the support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation. Â
The political situation in Syria is complicated. Canada broke diplomatic ties in 2012 but has been warming up since Ahmad Al-Shaara, the former Al-Qaeda rebel and Sunni Muslim, declared himself president in January 2025. He’s discarded his traditional garb for Western clothes. He’s shaken hands with Donald Trump and pledged to hold elections in September to unify the country and to protect all minorities.
But the Sweida attacks against Druze and other ethnic groups have Canadian Druze sceptical of his intentions. They want the international community to respond, to bring diplomatic pressure to end an ongoing economic siege, and to let food and medical supplies in–a humanitarian corridor opened for Druze civilians to leave the area. Â
It’s been a struggle for local Druze Canadians to get much traction for their people’s plight. In fact, their press conference last Friday attracted just two journalists, and The CJN was one of them. On today’s show, we’re joined by two Druze Canadians whose families in Syria have been directly impacted. Hend Raad lives in Barrie, Ontario, where she works in the furniture business. Jamil Ammar came in 2017. He’s a lawyer, lives in Niagara Falls, and works as a professor at several Ontario colleges.
Hend Raad: Thank you.
Jamil Ammar: Thank you, Ellin
Hend Raad: It’s an honour to meet you as well.
Ellin Bessner: Each of you. Jamil, would you kindly share a little bit of your story about your journey to Canada? How many years have you been here and who’s home for you back in Syria?
Jamil Ammar: Sure. So my name is Jamil Ammar, originally from Syria. I live in a village called Nuvr Elmir in the Harmon Mountains. It’s straight on the border between Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. We are very close to the Golan Heights. So in 2013, Al-Nusra Front invaded our area. My village was wiped out off the earth, so we had to evacuate. Then my family went to Sweida, and I left the country entirely. I went to the UK. I did some work at Edinburgh Law School, and from there, I went to the United States. I did two years at Rutgers Law School, and from there, I came to Canada. Currently, most of my family members still live in Syria in Sweida.
Ellin Bessner: And now tell me your story.
Hend Raad: So back in 2015, my husband and I got married. Unfortunately, back then, the Assad regime had forced military service on all men of a certain age, and my husband did not want to join that war at all. He didn’t want to kill any other Syrians or participate in any part of the violence. So in 2015, we had to run away to Lebanon. He went ahead of me to ensure the way was safe and tried to find a place for us together. I followed him four or five days later. We stayed in Lebanon for around a year, less than a year. We were able to come to Canada later, sponsored by my uncle here. Once we got to Canada in 2016, we started a new life. We lived with my uncle for a few months, and then we moved to Scarborough. We found jobs and started to build our lives from scratch. Now we have a house in Barrie, and we have two beautiful kids.
Ellin Bessner: So you’re mentioning military service. Jamil, did you serve?
Jamil Ammar: Well, I did my PhD in Scotland, the UK. I came back in late 2010. I was arrested at the airport as all male Syrians must go to military service. I went to the army. The revolution started a few months after, and I was forced to serve in the army. I was stuck there from 2011 until late 2013. So yes, I did.
Ellin Bessner: Right, okay. I was just curious because I know in the Israeli Druze community, everybody serves, and it’s mandatory also for Syrians, of which I wasn’t aware.
I’ve heard about how this impacted your relatives, and I’m so sorry to hear this horrible, tragic news. Do you want to share with our audience some of the names and the situation of your family? Would you like to do that?
Hend Raad: Absolutely, yeah. So we have almost 10 of my husband’s cousins in his own village called Al-Mazra’a [just outside Sweida] that was burnt completely by the Syrian government. This is all recorded. 10 of my husband’s cousins and relatives have been slaughtered or killed brutally just because they defended themselves, and they live in that area. That was one of the first areas the Syrian government entered.  My in-laws are suffering the most now because they are both cancer patients and have no access to medicine, no access to chemo for two weeks now. Even before these two weeks, supplies were very limited and hard to obtain. My husband’s grandmother is an Alzheimer’s patient with no medicine or healthcare support. We have newborns in my cousin’s families lacking food, formula, diapers, basic supplies. If this goes on for another week, I don’t know if these people will survive.
Ellin Bessner: Do you know whether the Internet has been restored in the communities where your families were staying? Or are they… What’s the situation, the latest as you know, in some?
Hend Raad: Areas it was restored, and of course, the Internet is connected to the power outage and the electricity supply chain. So not all areas have this.
Jamil Ammar: So you.
Hend Raad: You would hear from your family, like let’s say today, but then you might not hear from them for the next three days.
Ellin Bessner: And what’s the situation with you and your relatives or friends, Jamil? Have you been in touch with them in the last few days?
Jamil Ammar: Last week, yes, I was in touch. Today in the morning. But similar to what was just pointed out, they sent me a message on WhatsApp. It’s not possible to communicate directly. It’s getting harder by the day. Like, currently, my family has a couple of cars in Sweida, but they are walking on foot because there’s no fuel, no gasoline for the cars. They are starting to run out of almost all necessities. We hope things will improve. So, if it doesn’t improve, it’s going to be very serious.
Ellin Bessner: You’re saying they’re walking. Are they trying to get to another humanitarian corridor and escape to elsewhere inside Syria as displaced persons? Or are they trying to get out to, let’s say, Jordan or somewhere?
Jamil Ammar: People from Sweida have no corridors, no humanitarian corridors. People from Sweida have no option to leave; they are stuck where they are. So there isn’t at the moment hope. And I’m not trying to depict a bleak picture. This is actually the picture. You don’t hear the sound of tanks, AK-47s, and automatic gun machines. Today you see the sound of economic warfare. Sweida is under complete economic siege. It’s not framed that way, don’t get me wrong, but the fact of the matter is that non-ethnic minorities, non-Druze may have the ability to leave Sweida, but for the rest of the population, they are stuck inside. But people are in desperate need of all necessities. They need water. Some houses have not touched any food and vegetables since the beginning of the crisis. Some have kids; they need milk. People walk around trying to find these resources. The community comes together very strongly. You know, neighbours help neighbours, but it’s a struggle.
Ellin Bessner: Who’s preventing them from moving from that area?
Jamil Ammar: So, to the best of my knowledge, based on the experience of a few of my friends, if you are Christian and you have documentation to prove it, they might allow you to leave Sweida. For the Bedouins, definitely, they are allowed to leave Sweida, and some of them left voluntarily. But to the best of my knowledge, if you are from the Druze community, you are not. I have a few relatives who live in Germany, for example. They are German citizens and they have jobs. I have relatives with jobs in the United States and the United Arab Emirates. They have been visiting. All of them are stuck in Sweida until today.
Ellin Bessner: And in terms of what the Canadian government should or could do, could you explain what you would like Canadian politicians to do besides tweeting?
Jamil Ammar: We are aware that this saga has been going on for almost 15 years, so there is a case of fatigue, media fatigue. People feel sick and tired of watching this and following this. But believe you me, this is the only mini ethnic cleansing campaign that has been going on camera. Online videos, pretty much the overwhelming majority of massacres are documented. And yet we see very little attention from international governments and organizations. We in the Druze community believe in the rule of law. We do not believe in violence. We were and still hope that the government will come to its senses and do the right thing. The right thing is very simple. The state should protect its own citizens. The state should never, ever turn one fraction of the population against the other. The state should
never militarize religion to uproot a small ethnic minority. We are not asking for much. We are just asking the Canadian government to live up to its standard and do its best to persuade the current interim government to adhere to international norms. You cannot look the other way when innocent people are killed. We are simply asking the Canadian government to use diplomatic tools to make sure the Syrian interim government walks
the walk, not just talk the talk. Because make no mistake, this current interim government has a fantastic propaganda machine. They are really good at talking. But there is a complete divorce between what they say and what they do. I am not interested in people wearing a tie, a nice suit, and then sending their own army to kill innocent civilians. We are simply asking for the killing to stop. We are asking for the
siege to be lifted so women, children, elderly, unarmed, civilians can live their normal lives and get their basic needs. Is this too much to ask, Canada? None of us in the Druze community, none, is interested in causing any further damage to the already exhausted population. And it would be very dangerous for our community, the Druze community in Sweida, if this crisis is perceived as if it’s because
of what the Syrian interim government did against our community that the international community imposed sanctions because there is a huge, sophisticated, and lethally effective hate campaign based on ideology to demonize the Druze community, accusing them of helping the so-called Jews, accusing them of trying to divide Syria, which makes things even more complicated.
Ellin Bessner: Right. Let’s go into that point. Israel bombed Syria. They said ‘We have to protect our Druze relatives and friends’, and also make sure no bad things happen on the border because Israel has troops there too. How do you feel about Israel’s intervention? Because that’s kind of a controversial thing. Hend, do you want to go first?
Hend Raad: That’s the problem, Ellin. So the thing is, no true Syrian citizen would love to ask for help from anybody else outside Syria, not just Israel, if we had it from our own brothers in Damascus. So they have pushed us so hard to this option. They left us no way. They left us absolutely no way but to ask Israel for help. And I find this legit. It’s controversial, yes, but what else can we do? What else can we do? Like, would we just let you come in and kill us and just, you know, watch you doing that?
So it’s not about dividing Syria. And that’s what they don’t understand. That’s what the government is actually trying to twist the facts really hard. If we call for federalism, or let’s say provinces that are separated from each other, it’s exactly like Canada, which is ruled by federalism. That’s not called dividing Syria. No, Syria is combined. It’s like a mosaic, a beautiful painting.
Ellin Bessner: We have Alberta. They want to separate, but you don’t bomb them.
Hend Raad: Yeah, exactly. That’s the thing. That’s what we mean. We only asked for federalism, for a civil state, for protection, for human rights, and we have seen nothing. We didn’t even see a true negotiation. We didn’t even see a clear communication. All we have seen was violence. Exactly like how Dr. Jamil said. They are actually wearing suits and going on the media pretending to be nice and diplomatic. But if you notice, Ahmed Al-Shaara, since the regime toppled, he never even mentioned the word democracy in his speech. He has never mentioned this word because he doesn’t believe in democracy.
He believes in Sharia, which is the Islamic law. So he is absolutely planning another holocaust against minorities, but he’s trying to make it look beautiful. That’s exactly what it is. So we know it, and we want other people to know it. They left us no option. We will definitely ask for help from loyal friends because we have lost trust with Damascus.
Ellin Bessner: You saw that Israel airdropped. We don’t have to get into the whole Israel-Gaza situation, but Israel airdropped hundreds of meals into Gaza. Do you think Israel should be doing the same thing? Dropping food into, so what do you guys? Jamil, what do you think?
Jamil Ammar: I think we need a sustainable, viable solution to this ongoing crisis. Currently, dropping aid by air is the only available option. However, it is a drop in the ocean. It does not matter how hard you try, you are talking about an entire city now. Part of my work is hate speech, counterterrorism, and digital intermediaries. I have been working with this for 15 years. I have seen exactly what the Islamic State or ISIS did in the past. We have the videos. I know what Jabhat Al Nusra did.
But the fact of the matter is, what happened recently in Sweida was even much more shocking. Why is that? Because what happened was a quite systematic alienation of the entire place. Yes, the number of villages completely looted and burned is mind-boggling. We are talking about, give or take, about 35 villages, in the region of 8,000 to 10,000 houses burned to the ground. Pretty much in every single place they enter, they destroyed the economy.
And just today in the morning, I got some information that up until this moment, government forces, with the help of Bedouins, are currently looting the area between Kanakir and Al-Mazra’a, which does have huge advanced farms by the Druze community. They are looting the, you know, solar systems. They are. It’s millions of dollars.Â
In my humble opinion, there is a very cunning but systematic approach to destroy the economic foundation of an already poor area. So when we talk about aid and food and drink, we need to be mindful of the fact that first, we are talking about a level of destruction at the micro level that has never been seen before. We are talking about a huge scale, and dropping aid by airplane is not going to cut it. You cannot drop water to 600,000 to 700,000 people. You cannot drop fuel. You cannot drop diapers for kids. You cannot drop tomatoes. The people, they need everything. So we need for the economic siege to be lifted. This is the only viable approach.
There were a few attempts in other Druze communities in Jaramana to send aid. They allowed two very small consignments. They sent bread, but the government refused to allow the bread to come in. So what we are talking about here, Ellin, we need a realistically workable scenario. Because make no mistake, a week from now, in this searing heat, if this very unfair and brutal economic prestige is not lifted, we might see starvation cases in Sweida.
Ellin Bessner: It struck me, the pictures of the sheiks who had their beards and moustaches shaved. Jews know what that means, What does that mean when you see these pictures coming out?
Hend Raad: It hurts a lot because I just would imagine that this is my grandparent. I would imagine that this is my in-law.
The most hurtful fact, Ellin, is that those who did this, we were considering them brothers. We were considering them our partners in building this country again after 14 years of destruction, after 14 years of humiliation, poverty, ugly pictures, and ugly chemical weapons that dropped everywhere. This is not the post-Assad era that we are dreaming of. This is absolutely not it.
They are actually aware, very aware of the culture of Sweida, that shaving a moustache is a powerful way to humiliate an elderly person. They came in with razors because they know that they will be taping this and they will be posting this proudly on social media. That is what hurts the most, and literally, our hearts are broken. It’s indescribable. The videos are disgusting, dropping people off the window or off the balcony, saying “Allahu Akbar” on them. It’s beyond our comprehension.
Ellin Bessner: I mean, I see the world condemning Israel, sanctioning Israel. They bring in flotillas of humanitarian workers trying to get into Gaza. Why isn’t anyone doing this for you guys?
Jamil Ammar: It’s not only that the Syrian interim government turned a blind eye, but there is something even darker happening here in Canada. We have people here in Canada who went on live video as well, stating their real name, and they support and encourage violence against the Jewish community. Glamourizing terrorism. This needs to end here and now.Â
We are not only struggling with the Syrian interim government back home in Syria, we are struggling with the Canadian government, and that is extremely dangerous.
I mean, haven’t we suffered enough, all of us? If we allow this violence to sneak into our home here, we have no other place to go. We have moved far too many different times that I really can’t think of where to go.
So we have a lot of work. This must end, and it must end now. This is an avoidable massacre. The interim government could have debated, could have discussed ideas, debated with ideas. We should not settle our scores using guns.
Ellin Bessner: I’m honoured to speak to you on The Canadian Jewish News’ North Star podcast. Thank you so much.
Jamil Ammar: Thank you, Ellin. Thank you.
Ellin Bessner: And that’s what Jewish Canada sounds like for this episode of North Star, made possible thanks to the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation.
While Canada still considers the rebel group, which the new Syrian president once ran, a banned terrorist organization, nevertheless, our country has eased economic sanctions on Syria, pledged $100 million in aid, named a special envoy, and told the Canadian ambassador in Lebanon to start supervising diplomacy with Syria, too.Â
Global Affairs Canada told us the government is “concerned” about the ongoing restriction of humanitarian workers getting into the Sweida area.
You can learn more about the Toronto Druze organization’s fundraising efforts in our show notes.
North Star is produced by Zachary Judah Kauffman and Andrea Varsany. The executive producer is Michael Fraiman, and the music is by Bret Higgins.
Thanks for listening.
Show Notes
Related links
- Read more about the Toronto Druze community’s efforts to raise awareness about the massacre of their people in southern Syria, in The CJN.
- Learn more about the Beit El Jebel Organization of Druze in Toronto, and how to donate.
- Meet an Israeli Druze IDF veteran who was wounded after Oct. 7, who came to Canada to recover, in The CJN.
Credits
- Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
- Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
- Music: Bret Higgins
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