Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said he believed Israel’s strike on the Syrian capital of Damascus was "likely a misunderstanding" amid concerns over unrest that erupted this week.
"It's complicated," Rubio told reporters after President Donald Trump asked him to take a question by a reporter in the Oval Office amid a bilateral meeting with the Crown Prince of Bahrain, Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.
"These are historic longtime rivalries between different groups in the southwest of Syria," Rubio said, in reference to clashes between the Druze, a monotheistic religion rooted in Abrahamic beliefs, and the Bedouin, which is a Sunni-based tribal group. And it led to an unfortunate situation and a misunderstanding, it looks like, between the Israeli side and the Syrian side."
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Rubio said he had been in communication with both sides since the fighting erupted, which comes as the U.S. is looking to see Syria emerge as a beacon of hope in the Middle East following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December.
Reports on Wednesday said the Israeli strikes caused damage to the headquarters of the Syrian Defense Ministry and resulted in the death of three people and injured nearly three dozen others.
Israel took action to defend the Druze in southwest Syria in a region that sits on the border with the Golan Heights — an area that the U.N. maintains is Syrian territory but which Israel annexed in the early 80s — after the Syrian government was apparently seen as targeting the Druze minority group there.
Concerns over minority rights have been increasing since the December takeover by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former terrorist organization, but whose designation was removed by the Trump administration earlier this month.
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The Druze community — which is largely found in parts of Lebanon, the Golan Heights and Syria — reportedly came under increased attacks this week by first Bedouin militias, and then Syrian government forces.
Reporting by the Associated Press said the clashes in southern Syria first erupted after a Druze man was attacked and robbed while stopped at a Bedouin checkpoint in the Sweida province.
Brutal tit-for-tat attacks then reportedly ensued, and the government sent in forces to get control of the situation, though reports suggest civilians continued to face brutal situations with death tolls ranging between 30 and 90 people killed this week.
But footage and reports apparently surfaced to suggest the government forces had not only begun attacking Druze communities by burning and looting their houses, but also were targeting Druze men by publicly humiliating them and forcibly shaving their mustaches.
"We think we're on our way towards, real de-escalation and then hopefully get back on track and helping Syria build a country," Rubio told reporters, which is part of the administration’s overall goal to stabilize relations in the Middle East, particularly with Israel.
"In the next few hours, we hope to see some real progress to end what you've been seeing over the last couple hours," the secretary added.
Fox News' Ruth Marks Eglash contributed to this report.
