DAMASCUS: Hundreds of clerics from Syria’s Druze minority on Friday are heading to Israel where they will conduct a pilgrimage to a sacred shrine, the second such visit since longtime ruler Bashar Assad’s ouster.
The clerics from the esoteric, monotheistic faith, are to cross the border on foot, according to a Syrian official and a local news organization, despite Israel and Syria being technically at war.
The delegation will visit the Nabi Shuaib shrine in north Israel’s Galilee region, where an annual pilgrimage is held from April 25-28 each year.
Abu Yazan, the official from Hader on the Syrian Golan Heights, said that 400 clerics from his town and from the Damascus suburb of Jaramana will head to Israel after the Israeli authorities gave their approval.
Asking not to be identified by his full name, he said the trip was “purely religious” in nature.
Suwayda24, a news organization from nearby Sweida province, said some 150 Druze clerics from that area would also participate.
The group notified the Syrian government of its plan to go to Israel, though it received no response, the website added.
Unlike during a smaller visit to the shrine last month, the clerics will spend the night in Israel this time.
Abu Yazan, who is one of the participants, said that “we requested to stay for a week to visit the shrine” and other members of the religious community “but the Israeli side only authorized one night.”
The Druze are mainly divided between Syria, Israel and Lebanon.
They account for about three percent of Syria’s population and are heavily concentrated in the south.
Israel seized much of the strategic Golan Heights from Syria in a war in 1967, later annexing the area in 1981 in a move largely unrecognized by the international community.
After Islamist-led forces ousted Assad in December, Israel carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syria and sent troops into the demilitarised buffer zone of the Golan.
Israeli authorities have also voiced support for Syria’s Druze and mistrust of the country’s new leaders.
In March, following a deadly clash between government-linked forces and Druze fighters in Jaramana, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said his country would not allow Syria’s new rulers “to harm the Druze.”
Druze leaders rejected the warning and declared their loyalty to a united Syria.