A recent surge in violence against Syria’s Druze religious community has reportedly seen over 100 people killed since the start of May. This is a grim extension of sectarian tar

Five months after its liberation from the police state of Bashar al-Assad, Syria sometimes looks like a country in civil war. Sectarian clashes have turned into street battles with rockets and mortars.

The fighting and the Israeli attacks add to the difficulties faced by Syria’s new government – which only came to power after the fall of longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad – as it attempts to rebuild Syria after nearly 14 years of war.

The new government has pledged to unify Syria after overthrowing the Assad dictatorship. One of its biggest challenges is persistent sectarian violence.

Attacks on the Druze by Islamist gunmen backing the new Syrian government have pushed some in the community to welcome Israeli promises of protection.

Gunmen have killed six Alawite civilians on the coast and in the interior of the country in the past 24 hours, sources in the community said on Sunday, days after Syrian President Ahmad Al Shara discussed protecting the country’s minorities during a visit to France.

With more than 100 people killed this week in a region controlled by the Druse minority, Druse leaders signaled new willingness to join forces with the Sunni Muslim-dominated government.

And in Germany, Amie Liebowitz has been to a reunion of pensioners born at the Bergen-Belsen camp, around the time allied forces liberated Nazi concentration camps. While there, she also traced her own family's history, and story of survival.

Syria strongly condemned foreign intervention following a rare Israeli strike near Damascus on Wednesday amid deadly sectarian violence.

Israel conducted several airstrikes in Syria between April 30 and May 3 after sectarian clashes erupted in the country. “The IDF has carried out a warning operation and struck elements of an extremist group that was preparing to continue attacks on the Druze population,