Spectators watching the Betis vs. Real Madrid match on the screen at Café Lina noticed the sudden presence of armed men with machine guns gathering on the corners. Within minutes, more cars with reinforcements for the militiamen began to arrive at Khodor Avenue, the main route in Jaramana.
A mobilization accompanied by the sound of gunfire in the vicinity of the same checkpoint that the suburb's population has to pass through to reach the center of Damascus, just three kilometers away.
In a matter of minutes, the warlike fervor spread throughout the district, where more than a million people reside, including about 150,000 Druze, to whom the militiamen present in the streets belonged. Known for their close tribal ties and combative character, news of the harassment suffered by the suburb at the hands of the Damascus government agents led to the immediate deployment of all kinds of characters. From those displaying a shiny AK-47 to those marching with World War II machine guns or simple pistols. You could come across grandparents with their grandchildren armed with all sorts of war paraphernalia, including rocket launchers.
The crisis began the day before when a known member of Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) - the group led by Syrian President Ahmad al Sharaa - was killed in this same enclave, an incident that led to the expulsion of police forces loyal to the new authorities.
The news of the bloody altercation led to an improvised siege around Jaramana. Dozens of Druze paramilitaries took positions at the checkpoints guarding the entrances to the neighborhood, while on the other side, Syrian government troops could be seen. For hours, both sides exchanged a heavy barrage of gunfire that resulted in another death and a dozen wounded. At intervals, residents could see red tracer rounds streaking across the sky.
With nearly a million members mainly distributed in the Sweida region, the Golan Heights, and Jaramana, the Druze community of Syria is governed by its own rules, anchored in tradition, including the absolute leadership of its religious leaders.
Therefore, the residence of the highest religious authority in Jaramana, Sheikh Haitham Katibi - known as Abu Ahed - was also a gathering of armed men and local dignitaries trying to halt the sudden wave of violence.
"Jaramana is an example of coexistence. Here there are Druze but also Sunnis, Christians... people of all religions. Those responsible for the murder are a group of bandits like those you can find in many neighborhoods of Damascus. The problem is that the authorities in Damascus did not give us time to arrest them. They tried to invade Jaramana and that caused the clashes," explained Rabia Munder, a local activist acting as a spokesperson for Katibi.
The skirmish in Jarama was resolved within hours through negotiation, but the incident took on an international dimension when Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, intervened in what was essentially a local altercation to threaten Damascus under the pretext of defending those he defined as "our Druze brothers".
"We will not allow the terrorist and radical regime of Syria to harm the Druze," declared the Israeli politician.
Almost immediately, Rabia Munder and Sheikh Abu Ahed rejected that offer, stating that it "threatens local peace." This position was later adopted by all Druze leadership in the country, including the most significant figure in this community, Sheikh Hekmat al Hajri, based in Sweida in the south of the country.
Thousands of Druze, including the residents of Jaramana, protested in the following days with banners saying "Israel, out of Syria" or "We are Syrians, not sects".
Israeli interference in the Arab nation is part of the aggressive policy that Tel Aviv has maintained regarding Damascus since the fall of Bashar Assad on December 8, when the Israeli army decided to violate the ceasefire agreement signed in 1974 and expand its presence in Syrian territory.
Israel has occupied most of the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967 but has now decided to deploy in the so-called Demilitarized Zone, a 250-square-kilometer strip in the southern area. On February 24, Netanyahu publicly admitted that this presence will be maintained "indefinitely" and also prohibited the presence of Syrian troops in the southern part of the country, which includes the provinces of Quneitra, Daraa, and Sweida.
Since Bashar Assad's departure, the Israeli air force has attacked Syrian army positions hundreds of times, fueling instability in a country devastated by civil war, plunged into a brutal economic crisis, and where the new authorities barely have the resources to control the myriad of armed factions left by the conflict.
According to US sources cited by Reuters, Tel Aviv is pressuring the United States to allow it to keep Syria "weak and decentralized" and accept that Russia continues to have bases in the Arab nation, ultimately to counter Turkey's influence, a serious rival for Israel.
Many Syrian analysts and the well-known leader of the Lebanese Druze community, Walid Jumblatt, have accused Israel of wanting to promote "chaos" and a new civil war in Syria. "They want to use sects to fragment the region", Jumblatt stated at a recent press conference.
Amid this escalating tension, on Monday night an unknown individual raised the Israeli flag in the city of Sweida, in the heart of the Druze region, prompting local groups to burn the flag immediately.
Copy of the Colonizing France
According to the director of the Lebanese publication Al Modon, Munir al Rabi, the Israelis are literally copying the project that France implemented during colonization, which led to dividing Syria into "sectarian states." In the early 1920s, Paris established up to three states in Syrian territories, including a Druze and an Alawite one. The French project ended in a general revolt led by the Druze Pasha al Atrash.
Syrian President Al Sharaa denounced the "continuous Israeli military attacks" during an Arab summit last Tuesday, stating that they are intended to "destabilize the region," although Damascus' ability to react to these violations of its sovereignty is limited.
Meanwhile, the southern population of Syria has gone from suffering under the Assad regime's repression and the ravages of the fratricidal conflict to the pressure they now endure due to the continuous presence of Israeli military in the area.
"We couldn't even celebrate the fall of the regime. Within hours, we had the Israelis destroying our properties," says Ahmad Asad, who had the misfortune of living in a house on the outskirts of Jubatha AlKhasab, in the province of Quneitra, where the Israelis decided to establish one of the many bases they have built in the area.
The traces left by Israeli incursions are psychological - the same fear generated by the Assad regime - but they are also physical. The hundreds of trees felled near Ahmad's home, the corral they destroyed, the wall demolished at the Quneitra governorate headquarters in Medina Baaz, or the sidewalks crushed by armored vehicles are part of these physical traces.