Golan Druze figures break publicly with al-Hijri as an arrest claim circulates from a single outlet

Asharq Al-Awsat reported on 3 September that recent remarks by Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri drew criticism from prominent Syrian Druze figures in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, who urged Jabal al-Arab to take a stand. The Files was not able to retrieve the specific remarks being rejected, nor the names of the Golan figures, and does not characterise their content here. The dissent is not new in kind: Sheikh Suleiman Abdul Baqi, head of the Ahrar Jabal al-Arab militia and the appointed head of internal security in Suwayda, told Newsweek in an interview published on 5 February that Israeli protestations of protection “ended up actually being counterintuitive, and it made it very hard for the reconciliation to take place”, adding that “our best method of protection is the rule of law in Sweida and these statements from Israel will result in more escalation and inability to negotiate.” He said Israeli rhetoric, including from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had emboldened armed factions in the province. Those comments are seven months old and are background, not current comment.

Separately, the Haaretz correspondent Zvi Bar’el reported on 8 September that on Friday 4 September the home of the social activist Atef al-Huneidi in al-Majdal, in Suwayda district, was raided by what the report describes as a gang of armed men, who fired live ammunition and threw hand grenades before entering, then beat and tortured him and threatened his life before taking him to Damascus. That account rests on unnamed local residents cited by a single outlet. The Files located no Syrian government or Interior Ministry response and no matching report in Enab Baladi, Syria Direct, SANA or ANHA. The allegation is recorded here as a claim carried by Haaretz on the word of locals, not as an established event. The article’s framing — that al-Hijri’s Israel alignment is a bargaining chip the Trump administration could withdraw — is the correspondent’s analysis rather than reporting.

Assessment: The Golan thread matters more than the arrest claim, and it is the one almost nobody is covering. Al-Hijri’s leverage rests on the assumption that he speaks for the Druze as a community and that Israel’s protection guarantee follows from that. Public dissent from Golan clergy erodes the first premise, and every actor with an interest in Suwayda knows it — which is also a reason to read the Asharq Al-Awsat item carefully rather than eagerly, since the story of a fracturing rival is exactly what Damascus wants told. Until the remarks and the names are on the record, treat the direction as real and the magnitude as unmeasured.