"The warnings in Damascus have ended - now painful blows will come," Israel Katz writes. Katz says the Israeli military will "continue to operate forcefully" in Suweida, the area of southern Syria where Israel has recently intervened in clashes between the minority Druze community and other armed groups.

"Silence and standing idly by are no longer an option,” Druze leader Sheikh Mowafak Tarif wrote. Israel's Druze spiritual leadership called on its community to prepare to assist their Syrian counterparts “by all means necessary,

After pro-regime fighters killed dozens of minority Druze community members in southern Sweida province, Israel warned Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa to leave the community alone. Israel also struck the Syrian army headquarters in a warning to the regime to stop the violence.

Intense Israeli airstrikes rocked Damascus, targeting Syria's defense ministry while protecting Druze communities in the south. Violence escalated in Sweida between Druze fighters and government forces.

An Israeli airstrike hit next to the presidential palace in Syria's capital Damascus on Wednesday, according to a Reuters witness.