“That building is gone,” reported Visegrád 24 after an Israeli Air Force (IAF) strike leveled Syria’s Defense Ministry in Damascus. Unconfirmed reports claim that Defense Minister Marhef Abu Qasra was killed by the blast.
The destruction of Syria’s defense ministry was just one part of a series of IAF strikes on Syria today. Open Source Intel counted at least 10 attacks on government forces in Daraa, to protect Syria’s minority Druze population.
Reuters reported Tuesday that Israel plans to keep southwestern Syria “demilitarized and to protect the Druze minority as deadly clashes continued in the region at the Israeli frontier.” The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) claims that more than 300 people have been killed since fighting resumed between Druze and government forces on Saturday.
Trump administration special envoy Tom Barrack called on all parties to “step back.”
Here’s slowed-down video of that Defense Ministry airstrike.
A new video from up-close shows the Israeli airstrikes on the Syrian Defense Ministry in Damascus.
That building is gone pic.twitter.com/xhbuakK9m6
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 16, 2025
I don’t know if the building is completely “gone,” as Visegrád 24 claimed, but even a disreputable real estate agent would hesitate before listing it as “a fixer-upper.”
The good news about Syria is that the new government, headed by former rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, is about as anti-Iran as possible. Not only has al-Sharaa cracked down on Iran’s proxies in Syria, his government allowed Israel to use Syrian airspace during the 12-Day War — a move completely unthinkable under Assad.
The bad news is all too predictable: a ruined country still reeling from a decade of civil war and two generations of brutal Assad misrule.
Israel might not be making any friends in Damascus this week, but they’re certainly making friends in the Druze areas of Syria near the Israeli border.
The Druze in southern Syria are now raising Israeli flags in their towns.
They are calling on Israel to protect them.
Video from @MiddleEast_24 pic.twitter.com/W12gF1IxSg
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 16, 2025
None of this is to say that diplomacy is dead.
It seems like only last month [It was only last month, Steve —Editor] that the White House announced Syria might be the next country to sign on to the Abraham Accords, establishing peace, normalized relations, and trade between Israel and a growing roster of Arab nations.
“When the president met with the new president of Syria, that was one of the requests that he made; for Syria to sign on to the Abraham Accords,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said three weeks ago. “I don’t have a timeline for you, but this administration wants to see that happen, and our partners in the region should know that.”
While it’s certainly a laudable goal — Syria under the Assad dynasty was an implacable foe of Israel — it seems Jerusalem is in no rush to get there. First, the new regime must either protect its Druze minority or bring its rogue militias to heel.
It hasn’t always been clear whether Damascus was directly involved in anti-Druze actions as a matter of policy, or if it was being done by rogue groups. The targets and scope of today’s IAF airstrikes indicate that Israel has good reason to believe the Al-Sharaa government is involved. But either way, an official peace with Israel is probably impossible until Syria is at peace with itself.
That could take a while — and a lot more explosions, too.
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