Syrian Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri on Thursday condemned what he called a "genocidal campaign" against his community after two days of sectarian clashes left 102 people dead.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz warned his country would respond "with significant force" if Syria's new authorities fail to protect the Druze minority, whose representatives rejected any attempt to force them out.

The violence poses a serious challenge to the Islamist authorities who ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December.

It comes after a wave of massacres in March in Syria's Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean coast in which security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,700 civilians, mostly from Assad's Alawite community, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Hijri denounced the latest violence in Jaramana and Sahnaya near Damascus as an "unjustifiable genocidal campaign" against the Druze.

He called in a statement for immediate intervention by "international forces to maintain peace and prevent the continuation of these crimes".

Israel has ramped up........

© International Business Times